


Shotgun Wedding

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Officer Lewis Chronicles [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Police Procedural, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2019-10-23 11:41:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17682767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: There are three things for which you need a witness: an accident, a crime, and a wedding. Darcy is pretty sure this isn't a coincidence.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amerna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amerna/gifts).



> And here we are, part three of The Officer Lewis Chronicles. This story is entirely the result of Amerna's ingenious scheming and enabling.

 

Prologue

_Webster's Dictionary defines 'wedding' as 'the fusing of two metals with a hot torch.'_

_-Michael Scott_

 

The speaker in Darcy’s ear crackled. She winced at the crunch that broke the silence and pushed the earpiece in further to muffle the sound. “Lewis, eyes up,” Rodriguez’ voice came over the com. “You in position?”

Darcy shifted in place again and wiggled her toes, trying to keep the blood flowing to her feet. “Exactly the same position I’ve been in for the last three hours,” she said through clenched teeth. “I thought you said this guy was punctual.”

“Forget what I said. Eyes on that Hummer?”

From her vantage point, hidden behind a mustard yellow shipping container, Darcy had a clear line of sight to their target. The silver SUV drove down the main alley between the sky-high stacks of containers. She stayed to the shadow of hers and crept slowly along until she reached the other side and could see where the car had pulled to a stop in front of Eddie.

She watched her partner bounce on the balls of his feet and snap his fingers together, looking every bit the part of nervous cook, hoping to break into the big leagues. “Man, where you been?” he asked immediately as Wallace Hayes got out of the passenger side. He was a big guy, Darcy noted with a gulp. Bigger than he seemed in the surveillance photos. He had a face of heavy features and a thick gut that hung over the waistband of his pants. Fingers like bratwurst.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she heard him ask gruffly, through Eddie’s microphone.

“Yeah, but I been waitin’ for hours,” Eddie reminded, bouncing a little less as Hayes took another step.

Their target let out a dry laugh. “Listen kid, you wanna work for me, then you work for me. I set the schedule, understood?”

“Sure,” Eddie shrugged, looking indifferent.

“J-Rod, you gonna move?” Darcy asked, glancing furtively to the containers on the other side of the terminal where Jozelyn Rodriguez was crouched, waiting with the same bated breath as she was holding.

“No,” Rodriguez said firmly. Firmly enough that Darcy pressed herself further back against the ridged wall of her container. She knew what they were waiting for. But knowing didn’t make her any less patient. Her shoulder ached and her feet were freezing inside of her boots. “We go on green,” she reminded. “Not a second before.”

“So where is it?” Hayes asked and the hair on the back of Darcy’s neck stood up. So close.

“Just a taste,” Eddie said casually as he reached into his pocket and withdrew a bag of icy clear crystal meth. “If you want more, you cut me in.”

Hayes raised a hand and the driver’s side door of the Hummer opened. A broad-shouldered man lumbered out and ushered them both toward the back end of the vehicle. He popped the trunk and Darcy’s breath caught in her throat.

“Do not. Move.” Rodriguez said again.

In the trunk, on her side, hands tied behind her back, was a girl. Thin-limbed, with big dark eyes and curly black hair that tumbled into her face when the driver grabbed her by the neck and forced her up onto her knees. Darcy waited for her to scream or to fight, or even look afraid. But she didn’t. She smiled drowsily and pitched forward half a foot before Hayes reached out and pushed her back. “Try this, sweetheart,” he demanded and offered the meth to the girl. “Tell Daddy if you think it’ll move.”

 _I’m gonna vomit,_ she thought mildly as she watched the girl—who couldn’t have been more than fifteen—wait while Hayes’ associate crushed up the rock and offered it to her in a line of white powder. He reached behind her and untied her hands so she could lean forward and snort the drug up her nose.

“Almost there,” Rodriguez warned with no room for argument in her tone. Darcy forced her gag back down her throat and took a long breath in through her nose. She kept her hand on her gun and her eyes on Hayes while he waited for the drug to kick in.

In the trunk, the meth hit its victim quickly and her eyes rolled back into her head. She fell back in a heap of giggles and pushed her hair out of her face. “Ohhh man,” her laugh was more of a cackle. “This isn’t gonna move, Daddy. It’s gonna _fly_.” She dissolved into her high then, hiccoughing another round of giggles and stretching her hands out in front of her to examine her long, thin fingers. She didn’t fight when she was turned onto her stomach and her hands were bound again behind her back. Hayes gave her a shove and closed the trunk again.

Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. From her position, Darcy couldn’t see his face, but she prayed to anyone listening that he wasn’t giving away his disgust. “So, what’s the word?” he asked, and Darcy could tell he’d chosen his words carefully. They couldn’t suggest anything. Nothing could sound like it was their idea if they wanted to keep Hayes from being able to claim entrapment.

Although, she reasoned, they weren’t just after him for the drugs. They were after him for murder. It’d be pretty hard to prove they put him up for the deaths of the three teenagers they found in the river. Packed into drums of formaldehyde and in varying stages of decay. If it had been Darcy’s sting, it would be over by now. She would have moved as soon as he set foot outside his car.

But it wasn’t Darcy’s sting. It was a narcotics sting and Rodriguez was in charge. If they got him for the drugs, they’d be able to pin him for the murders. With the sting, they could prove the drug charges right away. The murders could take longer.

“You got more of this?” Hayes asked, motioning with his wide chin to the closed trunk of the Hummer.

“I got whatever you need,” Eddie answered smoothly. “Just say the word and I’m ready to roll this shit out.”

Darcy swallowed hard and gripped the handle of her 9mm. “Follow my lead, Lewis,” Rodriguez reminded in her ear. “Be ready to back me up if he takes off.”

Hayes crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring Eddie’s stance. He stroked a hand over his chin, pretending to consider it. “You get me two kee by the end of the week. I’ll see how fast it moves and we’ll talk from there.”

Eddie nodded. “That’s fair,” he said and dropped his arms. “Let’s settle up and get the fuck outta here.”

The car doors opened and closed again; Darcy saw Rodriguez creep from her position, gun drawn, fist in the air to signal to the rest of the unit.

“As discussed,” Hayes was saying as his burly associate returned to the pow-wow with a nondescript duffle bag. “Twelve now, twelve on delivery.”

It felt like everyone held their breath as he offered it out to Eddie. Darcy counted the thump of her heartbeat in her ears in the three eternal seconds it took for her partner to reach out and close his fingers around the nylon handle.

“NYPD! Drop the bag!” Rodriguez called as the pier swarmed with police. Before they could close in, Hayes’ bodyguard reached for the gun at his hip and pointed it at Eddie’s face. Eddie was faster and knocked the arm down and grappled with his attacker before the gun hit the ground and fired a stray shot. In the melee, another group of Hayes’ people raced from a car they hadn’t seen and Hayes himself took off running.

Darcy bolted at the same time as Rodriguez. Her heart pounded in her ears as her feet slammed against the pavement while she raced through her row of shipping containers. “Lewis!” she heard Rodriguez call and she took the quickest left she could, crashing directly into Wallace Hayes and knocking them both to the ground.

Rodriguez was on him in a second, digging her knee into his back as she wrenched his hands behind him. “Wallace Hayes,” she grunted with the effort it took to restrain him while she clipped the handcuffs into place. “You’re under arrest.”

Darcy got to her feet and clapped her hands to her knees, trying to catch her breath. From what she could hear of the rest of the sting, they’d chased him a lot farther than she realized. “Nice takedown, J-Rod,” she said sincerely.

Her fellow detective smiled and pushed her hair out of her face. “Likewise.”

“Yeah,” she breathed with a glance down at Hayes. “Well. Anytime you need someone or something run into,” she straightened finally and offered a smile in return. “I’m your girl.”

 

Hayes’ cheek had scraped the concrete when Rodriguez had pushed into him to cuff him and the angry red abrasion stared at them like a bloodshot eye as they sat with him in the interrogation room.

“You gonna tell me what I’m in for, J-Lo?” he asked, eyeing Jozelyn up and down.

Joz opened the file she’d pulled and propped her chin on her hand. “Oh, let’s see,” she said conversationally, like she was reading a grocery list. “We’ve got possession, possession with intent to deliver, trafficking, abduction, corruption of a minor, and my personal favorite,” she flipped the folder shut, “first-degree murder.”

“Pfft,” he sat back in his metal chair and pulled his heavy hands up onto the table. “You can’t prove none a’that.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Darcy asked from her seat beside Rodriguez. “You were arrested _while_ corrupting a minor you abducted, in possession of crystal meth, making a deal to distribute more of said crystal meth and we have you in connection to at least three bodies that I think probably looked a lot like that little girl you had in your trunk before you put them in those barrels.”

His beady dark eyes moved over to Darcy’s face. He took his time letting them travel down to stare directly at her breasts, making her glad she’d worn a high-cut t-shirt to work that evening. The corner of his thick lips turned up in a smirk. “Y’know,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, “if Idda known how stacked you were, cutie, Idda let you put those cuffs on me a little sooner,” he lifted bushy silver eyebrows suggestively.

Darcy fought another urge to vomit as she cleared her throat. “And if I had known how badly you needed the exercise, Wally,” she dropped her voice to mimic his low tone. “I would have let you run a little longer.”

The door to the interrogation room swung open as Joz tried to cover her snicker with a cough into her hands. A well-tailored suit and a whiff of too much cologne strode over to the table and set a brown leather briefcase down beside Hayes’ hand. “Not another word, Mr. Hayes,” the suit instructed. His words were crisp and carefully measured. He produced a business card and slid it across the table. “Preston Taylor-Hause,” he said and offered a brief, overly polite smile. “I certainly hope you weren’t planning on questioning my client without me present.”

Joz glanced over to Darcy with a look of disdain. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said dryly. “Everyone knows it’s not a party without PTH.”

The attorney only nodded. “Has he been charged?”

“And then some,” Darcy said cheerfully. “The DA’s on her way down just to make it official.”

“Enough of this bullshit,” Hayes complained like a petulant child. “Bail me out, Pres.”

“There’s not going to be any bail,” Joz interjected swiftly, directing her words to Preston. “He’s the definition of a flight risk. No judge is going to let him go anywhere.” She slid the top sheet from Hayes’ file and slid it across the table, countering the delivery of his business card. “Here are the official charges. He’s going to be staying with us until at least the prelim.”

Darcy smiled. “Unless he’s feeling chatty, of course,” she added, batting her eyes for effect.

“I’m feelin’ something…” Hayes grumbled under his breath.

Preston’s hand fell heavy on his client’s shoulder. “Enough, Mr. Hayes,” he said, a new edge in his voice. “I need to speak to my client alone, please.”

“Sure,” Jozelyn shrugged and got to her feet as Darcy caught a flash of sleek black hair through the window of the door. “DA’s here anyway,” she noted and jerked her head toward the door. “Let’s roll, Lewis.”

Darcy stood and offered the two of them another saccharine smile. “Sweet dreams,” she said to Hayes before she rapped her knuckles once on the table and followed Rodriguez out into the hallway.

“Detectives,” District Attorney Yumiko Takagi only stood about five feet, four inches tall, but Darcy had never met anyone who could command more attention. It was almost eleven o’clock at night, and common knowledge that they’d woken her up to bring her down to the station, but she was dressed in a crisp, black skirt and blazer, full make-up and jewelry as if she’d been about to leave for the office. In one hand she clutched a leather folder and in the other, a cup of coffee. She appraised them both and, as usual, Darcy felt like she should have put in more of an effort when she’d gotten ready that morning. But Yumiko smiled patiently and sipped her coffee. “Can I assume he’s not being cooperative?”

“You absolutely can,” Joz assured her and handed off Hayes’ criminal file. “But that big ugly mug is all yours nonetheless.”

Yumiko glanced into the interrogation room and shook her head with a fond sigh. “And it’s not even my birthday…”

Darcy snorted a laugh. “Let us know what else you need from us.”

“Nothing right now,” Yumiko assured them both. “But great collar,” she said with another grin. “You two should probably get down to Rizzo’s before Nowicki decides he’s not buying anymore.”

 

There were three shots waiting on the bar by the time they arrived with Eddie in tow. “Slam dunk, guys,” DeSimone said, clapping Rodriguez on the back as they reached for their shots.

They turned back to the crowd of uniforms and detectives from narc and homicide. Rodriguez raised her glass high. “To catching bad guys!” she crowed victoriously.

“To catching bad guys!” Darcy chorused with the rest of her team. They threw back their shots together and the whiskey burned her throat all the way down to her belly. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and grinned as Eddie winced and slammed his shot glass down on the bar.

Predictably, he pointed to the empty dart board. “Best of three?”

“Loser buys the next round?”

“You’re on.”

It was only two games of darts before Eddie gave up and beckoned her to follow him back to the bar. “Such a pussy,” she commented with a scoff.

He waved away her words and ran a hand over his face. “Payback’s a bitch, Lewis,” he reminded. “And I’m pretty sure that douche bruised my sternum,” he rubbed his chest for effect. “Once I’m back to my full strength, you better watch out.”

“You were pretty convincing there, partner,” she said sincerely; she went to elbow him but thought better of it and settled for a light punch to his arm.

“Thanks,” he scoffed. “I feel like I gotta wash out the inside of my brain trying to fit in with that piece of shit.”

She squeezed his shoulder as Rodriguez approached, her cheeks flushed from the dance floor. “For real, though,” Darcy continued. “You were great. I don’t think I could’ve kept my shit together once he opened that trunk.”

Eddie motioned for another round for the three of them. “Do we know if she’s okay?” he asked, handing a fresh shot to Darcy and then to Joz.

Jozelyn nodded. “She’s in the hospital. Missing persons is trying to ID her and get her back where she belongs once she’s clean again.”

“Jesus Christ, that guy,” Eddie commented, shaking his head. “What a fucking deadshit.”

“Total deadshit,” Darcy countered, still fairly disgusted by what she’d seen in the last few hours.

“He’s a literal piece of trash,” Rodriguez agreed before she raised her glass again. “But he’s trash that’s going to prison for the rest of his life.” They clinked glasses.

“You don’t think he’s going to talk,” Darcy asked, pausing all three of them before they could throw back the liquor. “Do you?”

“Guy like that?” Joz asked with a skeptical scoff. “He’d have to have something huge in order for it to mean anything. Like…DEA huge.” Satisfied with her answer, Darcy and Eddie both followed her example and took their shots. “And in all seriousness,” she added, shaking off the sting of the whiskey. “Couldn’t have done it without you two.”

“You could have,” Darcy argued lightly as she made a quick decision that she was done with whiskey for the night. “But it would’ve lacked so much of the razzle dazzle.”

Eddie guffawed. “Yeah, I heard you were real dazzling when you plowed into Hayes like a linebacker.”

She grinned. “Whatever it takes, my brother. When Darcy Lewis decides to do something, she commits.” The word reminded her that she’d shut her phone off before they had reached the pier hours earlier and she dug for it in her purse. She pressed the button on the side and waited for it to switch on and boot back up.

When she looked up, Eddie was checking his watch with a frown. “I gotta get home,” he said regretfully. “Becca’s probably freaking out by now. Plus, Winnie’s got an ear infection—”

Jozelyn grimaced when she looked at her own watch. “Ah, shit,” she grumbled. “We should all probably pack it in soon. There’s gonna be mad paperwork in the morning.”

Darcy rolled her eyes with a groan until she looked back down at the phone in her hand. She had a missed call and two texts from Steve. Her stomach clenched for a moment before she opened them and saw that he’d simply sent her an update around six o’clock.

_-Just touched down. Be home soon._

Followed by the second, roughly three hours ago:

_-Home. If I’m in the shower when you get back, feel free to join me. : )_

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip and she bit back a grin. “Yeah, good call,” she said and tucked her phone away. She found their sergeant in the crowd and sent him a thumbs up. “Thanks for the drinks, Sarge!” she called, happy when Nowicki raised a thumbs-up back at her before she looked back at her friends. “I’ll see you guys in the morning,” she promised and pointed at them both. “And just remember, when we’ve got cramped hands and headaches tomorrow from all the paperwork…” she grinned. “We kicked ass.”

Jozelyn broke into a wide grin. “Hell yeah we did,” she agreed as they all brought their fists in for a three-way bump.

 

***

 

Steve was not still in the shower by the time Darcy got home. He was, however, sitting on the couch, looking much too appealing when his wet hair fell into his face as he looked up at the sound of her key in the door.

“Hey,” he said with a smile before he took in her clothes with a quick glance. “Were you at work this whole time?”

Darcy, sufficiently buzzed from the whiskey, adrenaline, and the lingering endorphins from her chase with Hayes, dropped her bag and kicked out of her shoes. “More or less,” she said, shrugging out of her jacket before she crossed the room to climb directly into his lap.

Steve raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Good night?”

“Great night,” she corrected before she leaned down and sealed her lips against his.

She felt him smile against her as he sat up straighter and sank a hand into her hair. He opened his mouth and let her deepen the kiss, his other hand drifted around to span across her back, holding her to him. Her knees squeezed tighter around his hips before she broke away and let him pull her head to one side to press his lips to her neck. Darcy pushed her nails into his wet hair and let out a hum of contentment as he focused his kisses just beneath her ear. “I missed you,” she heard him murmur, his breath hot against her skin.

She arched against him with a sigh. “I missed you too,” she said, even though he’d only been gone for four days. She _had_ missed him, especially the three days he’d been radio-silent. “How was…” she paused, her head a little fuzzy. “Wait. Where were you, again?”

“Belarus,” he breathed. “It was fine; boring. It was mostly recon.”

She tried not to think about the word _recon_ and how it implied he’d be leaving again, sooner rather than later.

Steve interrupted her thoughts with a bump of his nose against her earlobe. “You smell like a bar,” he said with a soft laugh. He didn’t stop his kisses but slowed down and let his teeth drag gently across her skin.

Darcy grinned and curled her fingers in his hair. “That’s ‘cause I was at a bar,” she assured him.

His hand trailed down her neck and joined the other, spanning the width of her back with his fingers. “What made it such a great night?”

“Sarge was buying.” She pulled him back from her neck and pushed him gently back against the couch. She leaned in, pressing as much of herself as she could against him before she breathed into his ear. “We were celebrating.”

“Celebrating?” Steve repeated and Darcy heard his breath catch in his throat as she caught his earlobe between her teeth and gave it a teasing flick of her tongue.

“Mmmhmm,” she all but purred, dragging her nails down his chest to slip beneath his t-shirt.

She pulled back just far enough to push the material up and over his head and caught the flash of realization in his smile as she tossed it on the couch beside them. He pushed back the hair that had fallen into her face and leaned in again, his nose brushing against hers. “Did you get him?” he asked, nearly pressing the question to her lips.

Darcy nodded and let out a giggle that was half whiskey and half pride. “We got him,” she said before she closed the distance between them.

Steve’s hands arms locked her in place against him a moment before he stood, making Darcy shriek in surprise. He carried her back to their bedroom in a few quick strides and dropped her gently onto the bed she’d forgotten to make that morning.

He knelt in front of her and quickly pulled her t-shirt over her head. Darcy laughed again when his hands spanned her ribs and he kissed her again. Hungrier, greedier this time. “Do you wanted me to tell you about it?” she asked coyly, when she pulled away, breathless.

His kisses meandered down her neck and over her collarbone. “Absolutely,” he said, sliding down the straps of her bra. “Tell me everything.”

Darcy let him push her back to the rumpled sheets while he took his time reacquainting himself with every inch of her exposed skin. She replayed the sting, the takedown, and the interrogation around the giggles and gasps Steve pulled from her and wondered, as her words turned into hitched breaths and soft moans, if it was possible to ever feel better than she did that night.

 

***

 

Her good mood lingered until 9:43 the next morning, when Rodriguez stormed up to her and Eddie’s shared desk and dropped her palms to the surface. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said, grinding the words through her clenched jaw.

Darcy frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “And where have you been?” she continued before she could stop herself. “I thought we were going to drown in our paperwork together.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Rodriguez huffed flippantly. “I got held up by the Driscoll, Yumiko, and Agent LaDuke who were all waiting for me at my desk this morning.”

Her stomach twisted as she shared a look of concern with her partner. “Agent LaDuke?” Eddie repeated, his face void of recognition. “Who’s Agent LaDuke?”

“Senior Agent Miles LaDuke,” Rodriguez said while her dark eyes took on a murderous glint. “From the DEA.”

The realization hit them both at the same time and Darcy dropped her head into her arms with an ungoverned whine.

“No,” Eddie exclaimed. “Huh-uh. No way.”

“Big way,” Rodriguez assured them both, equally miserable. “He’s been here since 8 this morning after Hayes told Yumiko he’s ready to make a deal.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darcy's exchange re: handcuffs and exercise with Hayes is from Angel S1E6
> 
> If you don't think I'm going to write Steve Rogers as the kind of guy who gets off on listening to his girlfriend take down the bad guys...then I guess you're wrong :)
> 
> Thanks for reading, kittens. Let me know what you think! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I mentioned this in the prologue, but apparently not. This fic is inspired 100% by this story, sent to me by the bold and brilliant Amerna: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/the-wedding-sting/392699/ It's not going to be shot-for-shot, but yeah. This is not an original idea by any means.

Chapter One

 

_I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury._

_-Groucho Marx_

Agent Miles LaDuke was, in a word, imposing. At least six and a half feet tall, dark skin and intense brown eyes, barrel chested and sporting a pair of biceps each the circumference of one of Darcy’s thighs. He was not even slightly intimidated by the scowls and crossed arms of the three detectives in front of him.

“Tell him no,” Darcy declared. “Why should he get to bargain for anything other than life without parole?”

“Because that’s how this works, Detective,” Yumiko said with a weary sigh. “He has direct contact with the head of one of the largest drug cartels in—”

“So he says,” Rodriguez cut in. “He’s probably just making it up! I’ve been chasing this guy for almost a year and I haven’t seen anything—”

“And I’ve been chasing his boss for _five_ years,” Agent LaDuke interrupted. “I’m not going to throw away an opportunity like this just because you don’t like it.”

Darcy felt her face contort in anger. “We don’t _like_ it?” she repeated, dropping her arms. “No, Agent, we don’t. We also _really_ don’t like when someone comes along and floods our city with meth, uses broke, scared _teenagers_ as pack mules until they’re too strung out to function, at which point he kills them and stuffs them into plastic barrels and dumps them in the river by the sewage plant. Did you even read the charges?” she asked incredulously. “How are you going to let him trade up on that?”

The DEA agent’s arms nearly doubled in size when it was his turn to cross them over his chest. “What do you think is going to make more of a difference, Detective Lewis? One man or an entire cartel?”

“Is he the one man?” Eddie asked, pointing back toward the interrogation room. “Because we already have him. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like there’s a pretty obvious bird-bush idiom at play right now.”

“We’re not letting him _go_ , Kimball,” Driscoll interjected impatiently. “We’re just going to see what he has to offer.”

“Right,” Rodriguez scoffed, rolling her eyes. “So that his lawyer can plead him down to manslaughter, maybe drop half the drug charges and with the possibility of parole, all he has to do is charm a few guards and the warden and he could be back on the street in seven years.”

“You’re oversimplifying things,” Agent LaDuke said dismissively. “And regardless, this isn’t your call. You caught him—job well done. Go get the next guy.”

“ _You_ go catch the next guy,” Darcy snapped before she realized the impotency of her comeback.

The DEA agent’s lips twitched into a smirk. “That’s what I’m trying to do,” he said before he shouldered his way through them, leading Yumiko and Driscoll out into the hallway with him.

The three detectives were quiet for a minute before Rodriguez unclenched her jaw and glared in Darcy’s direction. “ _You_ go catch the next guy?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” Darcy held up a hand. “Wasn’t my best.”

Eddie exhaled heavily and swiped a hand over his face. “C’mon,” he jerked his head in the direction their lieutenant had just departed. “We can at least creep on the interrogation.”

They crowded into the tiny room adjacent to interrogation, separated by a double-sided mirror and equipped with a basic intercom speaker and microphone. Eddie flipped on the speaker and shuffled around so they could all fit, leaning against the back wall.

The sight of Hayes looking so smug as Agent LaDuke took a seat across from him made Darcy’s stomach clench. “Oh, no,” he said with disappointment. “Where are the ladies who brought me in last night?” He smirked again. “Detectives Lips and Tits,” he clarified. “I wanna talk to them.”

Beside her, Darcy heard Joz grind a few Spanish words between her teeth as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. In the interrogation room, Hayes’ lawyer—dressed in another pristine suit and tie—cleared his throat. “Forgive my client,” he said politely. “He’s been subjected to some truly inhume treatment since arriving at your precinct, Lieutenant Driscoll.”

“Excuse me?” Driscoll scoffed. “He’s been in a holding cell all night. Alone. The fuck does he want? Turn down service?”

“That’d be a start,” Hayes grunted, shifting in his chair.

“I’m not here to talk about the accommodations, Hayes,” Agent LaDuke broke in. “You want to tell me about your boss, or do you want to go back in the cell?”

“How long you been chasin’ me, Lieutenant?” Hayes asked, raising a thick eyebrow. “Six months? A year?”

“A year and a half,” Driscoll said, deadpan. “What’s it to you?”

“Let me guess, you been having that little tamale make buys off my dealers for a few months? Figuring out who likes to talk? That how you figured out I was on top?”

“Something like that,” Their lieutenant’s shoulder moved in a shrug. “And my detectives followed a missing person pretty much right to your door.”

“Oh yeah,” Hayes said fondly with a nod. “Callie something, right?”

Darcy’s nails dug into the soft flesh of her palm as Yumiko cleared her throat. “They’re referring to Kahlila Greene, Mr. Hayes. One of the three minors you’re charged with murdering. If you just want to gloat, we can leave you to it and move forward with the preliminary hearing.”

“Alright, alright,” he waved a hand of thick fingers. “My point is, if you been followin’ me all this time, then you know I don’t have a supplier local. S’why I was meeting with _your_ guy,” he reminded them. “I thought I was getting my east coast hookup.” He paused and frowned. “And hey, whatever happened to him, anyway? My original cook. I can’t have been dealing with you guys the whole time.”

“You weren’t,” Driscoll assured him. “He’s in prison.”

“Figured,” Hayes huffed with a shake of his head.

“So your supplier…” Agent LaDuke said with a sharp cough to clear his throat. “Marshall Baptiste. Still operating out of Texas, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Where’s his cook?” LaDuke continued. “Here in the states? Mexico? Somewhere else?”

“Hang on,” Driscoll broke in again and cleared his throat. “Of the three detectives eavesdropping in observation,” he said, not bothering to turn around, “I believe only one of you is assigned to Narcotics, unless I processed two transfers without realizing it.”

“Fuck,” Darcy muttered. “Is that microphone on?”

“Lewis. Kimball,” their lieutenant barked. “Go clear something. Rodriguez, get your files and get in here.”

They sighed in unison and shuffled from the room. Eddie waited until the door was closed before he raised an eyebrow in Jozelyn’s direction. “Okay, but you’re gonna tell us what happens, right?”

“Obviously,” Joz said without hesitation.

Darcy hadn’t wanted to leave the observation alcove, but she couldn’t justify sneaking back in to eavesdrop when she remembered the stack of unfinished paperwork that was living on her and Eddie’s shared desk.

“You really think he’s gonna walk in seven?” Eddie asked as they sat down together.

“Not if there’s any justice left in the system,” Darcy muttered, watching Jozelyn dig through her desk across the bullpen. “But I’m gonna hold off on calling Kahlila’s sister until I know for sure.”

“Good call,” her partner agreed and pulled the first file folder down from the stack.

Darcy grabbed the next one and reached for her phone.

- _So, it’s not even 10am and I’m already boiling with hate,_ she texted to Steve. _Can I veto whatever we were going to do with that chicken I took out of the freezer and submit a new vote for tacos?_

His response came only a few minutes later. _Veto carries,_ he replied, _Chicken is going back in the freezer. Vague plans neutralized._ There was a pause before he added, _Hope your day gets better. <3 _

_***_

Darcy wasn’t feeling like tacos by the time she got home. Her stomach had twisted into a nice, tight knot of anxiety, woven in with skepticism and, buried somewhere deep under all that, was a tiny little thrill.

Steve was home, but he was in the office—judging by the jazz coming from the open door to their second bedroom—which gave Darcy a few extra minutes to try to process exactly what had happened since Driscoll had kicked her and Eddie out of the interrogation.

Although the three minutes she bought herself by going to the kitchen and retrieving a beer from the refrigerator didn’t do much for her plan of action. Darcy frowned as she climbed up onto one of the stools at the counter and took a drink. Idly, while she sipped, she flipped through the mail. Two bills, one notice about new hours at the leasing office, and a sheet of coupons for things she did not buy from a store she didn’t visit.

“Didn’t get any better?” Steve’s voice jolted her attention back toward the doorway where he was aiming his best Comfort Eyes at her.

Her stomach twisted again. _He’s going to hate this.,_ she assured herself. “That’s sort of…still up in the air?” she answered vaguely before she forced herself to be brave. “I’m glad you’re home, though,” she continued. “I need to talk to you.”

Steve regarded her warily as she hopped down again and approached him. “Does what we have to talk about have anything to do with the indeterminate status of your day?”

She felt her features twist. “Yes?”

His brow folded into three deep, familiar lines of concern. “Okay,” he said with a nod. “You want to talk here or sit down?”

She pointed to the living room and took his hand in hers, keeping their fingers entwined while she sat opposite him on the couch. “So, first of all,” she began, sucking in a deep inhale, “I’m pretty sure you’re going to hate what I’m about to say.”

The corner of his lips twitched into a brief, joyless smile. “This is…not my favorite way to start a conversation.”

“I know,” she said hurriedly. “But I don’t want you to think that I’m telling you this thinking you’re going to be thrilled about it.”

“Just tell me what it is, Darcy.”

“I might be going undercover.”

 

It hadn’t quite started out like that when Driscoll had called her and Eddie _back_ into interrogation. Darcy had resigned herself to hearing about anything Wallace Hayes-related secondhand through Narcotics, including explanation of some of the snippets she overheard as her lieutenant, Agent LaDuke, and Joz had walked through the bullpen earlier in the afternoon.

“So what? We’re just going to pick a date?” Driscoll had said, unaware of how his voice carried.

“We’re gonna need a lot more than a date to pull this off,” LaDuke had countered.

“If we’re making a list?” Jozelyn had chimed in on their heels, “cake should be somewhere close to the top.”

They’d been out of earshot after that. Darcy had looked up from her paperwork to find Eddie’s eyes narrowed in thought. “What the fuck are they talking about?” he asked, voicing her own thoughts. “Are they throwing a party?”

She’d shrugged. “No idea.”

 

“So, Wallace Hayes got to make a deal with the DEA,” Darcy said, forcing herself to start at the beginning of her very weird day as she relayed it to Steve. “Also, you don’t know any of this,” she added as an afterthought.

“Completely hypothetical situation,” Steve responded automatically. “Understood. What kind of deal?”

“He’s got this big plan to draw his boss—Marshall Baptiste—to the east coast and offered the DEA a chance to grab him _and_ about twenty of some of the biggest names Narc’s been following for the last few years.”

Steve’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “That’s… a pretty good deal,” he admitted. “What’s he get for it?”

Darcy shrugged. “I don’t know the specifics, but I’m pretty sure Yumiko’s considering dropping all three counts of murder to second degree. I don’t think she’ll go as far as manslaughter.” She frowned. “Jesus, I hope not.”

He looked at her expectantly. “Okay….”

 

Her mind hadn’t been on her paperwork the rest of the day. She was too busy watching Joz dart to and from her desk and retrieve file after file, watching LaDuke move through the bullpen on his phone all day, catching a phrase here or there, trying to figure out what they were concocting.

“What about Hurst?” he asked his phone once, around three o’clock.  Darcy had watched his face fold in confusion. “Since when is she on maternity leave?” Another pause before he groused, “Jesus Christ, are they really the _only_ women we have?”

And then Driscoll had come and stood in the doorway of the bullpen and stared in her and Eddie’s direction three different times before returning down the hallway.

“Seriously,” Eddie had said, dropping his pen after the third time. “We’re not even doing anything. What’s he so pissed about?”

“It could be literally anything,” she’d muttered and forced herself to keep working.

 

In their living room, Steve squeezed her hand and refocused her attention on him. “How’s he going to do that?” he asked.

Darcy blinked. “Do what? Hand everyone over to the DEA?”

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “Seems like a big promise.”

Without realizing it, Darcy had let the thumbnail of her free hand drift up to her mouth to be worried between her teeth. “Well,” she said carefully, “that’s where the undercover thing comes in.”

 

The fourth time Driscoll appeared in the doorway, he caught Darcy’s attention right away. “You two,” he called without pretense. “In here.”

_In here_ was no longer the interrogation room with its two-sided mirror and buzzing overhead lights. He led them back to his office where Agent LaDuke was waiting with Joz, as well as O’Malley and Reed, two other detectives from narc. In the corner, someone had wheeled in a large corkboard and they’d clearly spent their day pinning up surveillance photos of the major players Jozelyn and Reed had been engaging for the last few months.

“I’m just going to lay it out,” Agent LaDuke said as Driscoll took a seat behind his desk and gulped coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “Mr. Hayes seems to think that he can get everyone on that board _and_ Marshall Baptiste all in the same room at the same time if we sell it just right. And if that happens,” he paused to lift his eyebrows, “we can make one big bust and cripple half the meth traffic in the country. How does that sound?”

Darcy had crossed her arms over her chest. “Like a bullshit fairy tale,” she’d said bluntly. “How the hell’s he going to do that?”

“And if you know all of these people and you know they’re all guilty,” Eddie motioned to the board. “How come we’re standing around talking about it and not arresting them?”

But O’Malley, a grizzled, close-to-retirement lifer with craggy skin and too many war stories was shaking his head. “You gotta get ‘em all at once,” he assured them in a heavy Staten Island accent. “These fuckers talk. One word about a bust and it’s all over. They’ll dump their stashes. Kill their mules. Skitter right back underground and you’ll never find ‘em again. Not to mention you’ll be fishing a whole lot more bodies outta the river.”

She hadn’t said anything, because it had made sense. In that backwards way that everything was kind of backwards in Narcotics—where it was all about setting traps that weren’t traps and waiting for the right person to do the wrong thing at the right time before anyone made a move.

 

“So they’re going to do it?” Steve asked, looking surprised. “They’re really going to stage some big event and try to round them all up at once?”

She took another deep breath and nodded. “So they say. “

He looked concerned again. “But what does this have to do with you? And what am I supposed to hate about any of this?“

 

Driscoll’s thick fingers had steeped together, and he’d tapped them against his lips before he spoke. “We’re going to have to look like we fucked this up,” he said finally. “ _It’s never,_ ” he raised his voice over the sudden din of groans. _“_ It’s never going to work if anyone suspects he made a deal. It’s gotta look like we fucked something up and he walked on a technicality.” He glanced up to where Yumiko stood, looking a little weary for her seventeenth hour in that suit. “And soon,” he added. “He’s here any longer someone’s going to get suspicious.”

She’d nodded. “I'll handle it,” she promised smoothly. “Just make sure we don’t regret this, Nick.”

Darcy was always impressed by anyone who could call Driscoll by his first name without wincing.

“We won’t,” he said with confidence. “And come October 12th, he’ll be right back in prison where he belongs.”

Eddie had frowned, his arms also crossed tightly over his chest. “What’s October 12th?” he asked, glancing around the room.

“That’s where you come in, detectives,” Agent LaDuke said, picking up the thread of the conversation. “Assuming this gets the green light from my boss, we need your help.”

Jozelyn cleared her throat. “Hayes has been really clear on the fact that Baptiste only comes to town for weddings and funerals and _never_ if he can’t do business while he’s here.”

Darcy’s eyes lit up. “So, we’re gonna kill Hayes? Make it look like an accident or a mob hit and draw everyone together for the wake? I like it,” she stated with a nod. “Kind of a _Training Day_ vibe, but if the feds are on board...”

Joz had smiled and shaken her head with a laugh. “Yeah, I pitched that too,” she admitted and drew a thumbnail over one of her dark eyebrows. She looked uncomfortable for a second before she shifted. “We want to do a big bust and we want it to be a big, flashy event that these guys are going to _want_ to go to,” she said with a nod toward her corkboard. “And honestly, what’s bigger and flashier than a New Jersey wedding?”

The gears in Darcy’s head—the ones that had been whirling and clicking along just fine, assembling the pieces of what they were saying—began to slow at the word _wedding._

Beside her, Eddie scoffed. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked with another glance around the room. “You want to throw a _wedding_ for a sting? Who the hell’s supposed to be getting married?”

“Hayes’ daughter,” LaDuke answered. “To his new east coast cook who can replicate what Baptiste has been moving out of Texas for the last five years. He’s gonna throw them a big, loud Jersey-style wedding and invite Baptiste and all of their friends to celebrate.”

Darcy had lifted an eyebrow. “And Hayes’ daughter?” she clarified. “We’re supposed to believe that she’s totally cool with playing along with this whole scheme that ends with her dad going to prison? And his cook is in Sing Sing,” she reminded them. “Awaiting trial, last I heard. Are you saying we’re gonna let him out too?”

“Hayes doesn’t have a daughter,” LaDuke informed her. “And we’re not looping his cook in on this.”

Eddie blinked. “Then who’s getting married?”

But Darcy already knew the answer before Driscoll cleared his throat. “Us,” she said, waiting for someone to correct her. No one did. “Right?” she looked from Driscoll to LaDuke, who shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what this is about?”

“You’re not my first choice,” he admitted. “But I’ve got exactly two women working for me, one’s fifty-six and retiring in about a month and the other’s on maternity leave.”

“Why not J-Rod?” Darcy asked, before she had decided if she even wanted to make the suggestion.

Joz shook her head. “Pilar’s out of town every other week,” she said of her wife, a litigator for some national union. Teachers or Teamsters, Darcy could never remember which. “This is a six-month job. I can’t leave Santi with my mom for that long.” Santiago, their two-year-old son with the giant brown eyes and penchant for the word _No_.

“Plus,” spoke up Driscoll. “You two are partners. And best friends. If I’m going to put two of my detectives undercover, I want it to be two who I know will have each other’s backs.”

If they did this, Darcy had thought, Eddie would be leaving _his_ children too. But Becca would be there, home each night to take care of them in his absence. The only person she’d be leaving for six months would be Steve. And apparently no one in the room cared about any of that—her or Eddie’s commitments—because they’d called them in anyway and made it obvious they were the best option.

 

Steve’s expression was unreadable. Darcy squeezed his hand again and covered it with her other. “So that…happened,” she said slowly, watching his face for any hint of a reaction, one way or the other.

After a long, agonizing minute, he let out a breath and shook his head. “Can’t say I was expecting _that,_ ” he said finally.

He hadn’t let go of her hand, so Darcy held on. “You hate this, right?”

His brow furrowed and he shook his head again. “No,” he said quickly—little too quickly—before he raised his eyes to meet hers. “I mean,” he corrected himself. “As far as plans go, I don’t _love_ it. But I don’t…” he stopped and frowned, appearing to choose his words carefully. “I don’t _love_ the idea of you going undercover,” he said.

“I was undercover when you met me,” she reminded, feeling a little defensive. “I was in Vice for two years before I got my transfer—half my job was undercover. I’m really good at it.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t,” he assured her. “This has nothing to do with whether or not you can handle yourself.”

“But you hate this idea,” she repeated, because it was obvious that he did. And even if he lied and said he was fine with it, she could tell he wasn’t.

“I’m not going to lie and say I’m not worried that your office won’t think about all the ways this could go sideways, or that I’m not going to be worrying about your safety every day you’re not here—”

“You do that anyway,” she reminded softly.

“Yeah,” he clipped. “I know. But you…” Steve paused and looked at her again. Really looked at her this time and Darcy saw his shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. “You really want to do this,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“There’s a decent chance it won’t happen,” she said, sidestepping the question for a minute. “They have to run it up the chain. Get Morrison on board _and_ LaDuke’s director. Driscoll said he’d let us know by tonight if we had the green light. But there’s a shit ton of planning and a bunch of stuff they have to set in motion before the _actual_ assignment could start and—”

“But you _want_ to do it,” Steve interrupted gently.

She pursed her lips together. “Yeah,” she said with a nod. “I do. If it works, we wouldn’t just be getting the guy who killed those kids, Steve. We’d be getting the _reason_ he killed those kids. And a bunch of other guys as bad or worse who do the same thing.” She paused and pressed her teeth into her bottom lip. “And to be fair,” she added. “I said we could have just as much success if we were planning a funeral. But I was outvoted.”

Steve smirked and Darcy felt her stomach unclench a little bit. He ran his thumb absently over the top of her hand, staring at their intertwined fingers before he looked up again. “What I think doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not you go through with this,” he said, looking like he just realized that himself. “So, it doesn’t really matter if I’m okay with it.”

“Just to me,” Darcy said with a half-smile. “I don’t want to do this if you’re not gonna be on my team.”

He untangled their fingers and reached up to push her hair behind her ear. “You’re telling me that you just got offered to be part of a DEA taskforce and you’d turn it down if I was going to act like a jealous bitch about it?”

“No, of course not,” she said instantly. “I’m just saying that it would suck, knowing that you were home, all pissed off while I was out kicking ass. It would taint the experience.”

To her relief, Steve snorted something that sounded like half a real laugh. “Darcy,” he said, “the only thing I’m going to be doing while you’re out kicking ass is wondering someone's got your back and worrying if you’re okay. Which, as you pointed out, I do that no matter what. So, this isn’t going to be that much different.” She smiled before he continued. “And as far as pretend fiancés go,” Steve added with a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “You could do a lot worse than Eddie.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “Eddie loves you _way_ too much to ever make a move on me.”

His next laugh was slightly more relaxed. Steve let out another sigh and clapped his hands to his knees. “Well now I need tacos,” he declared.

 

They ate their tacos while Darcy answered as many questions as she could and tried not to obsessively check her phone. Driscoll would call when he called, she reminded herself a few hundred times as the hours of the evening ticked past. And if he didn’t, then he didn’t.

Her phone didn’t ring until after ten, when she’d changed into her pajamas and was flipping back the comforter. She heard it buzz against the bathroom counter and was halfway across the room when Steve appeared in the doorway, his mouth white with foamy toothpaste. She grabbed it from his hand and mouthed a quick, “Thank you,” before she looked at the screen.

It wasn’t Driscoll. It was Eddie.

“What's up?” she greeted, feeling a crease form between her brows.

“Is this a bad time?”

“No,” she assured him, noting that Steve had not returned to the bathroom to finish brushing his teeth. “What’s up? Did you hear anything from Driscoll?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Just now.”

“And?” Her eyes were wide, anticipating his answer as she met Steve’s expectant look. “What’d he say?”

“He told me to call you,” Eddie said and if he’d been standing there, she would have punched him in the arm for dragging this out. He cleared his throat. “Darcy Lewis, will you marry me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *squints* I feel like Steve might be read as OOC in this chapter, but just let me do my thing. I promise it's going to be okay.
> 
> \--
> 
> Let me know what you think! 
> 
> Share the love on Tumblr @idontgettechnology and check out ishipitpod.com for more fanfic fun
> 
> *blows kisses*


	3. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Engagement

 

 Chapter Two

 

_Ask me again how wedding planning is going, and I’ll beat you to death with my guest list_

_-Wedding Planning Joke #48_

Natasha stood in the doorway of the gym for a long time before she decided to approach. She watched Steve at the punching bag. Something was wrong, that much was obvious. But it couldn’t have been _so_ wrong that he was here and not running out his anger with a thirty-mile sprint to White Plains or wandering the less desirable neighborhoods of the city with an aim to disrupt any low-level wrongdoing with his fists.

No, Natasha decided with a thoughtful tilt of her head. This wasn’t angry punching. This was…frustrated punching. At best, irritated punching.

He stopped abruptly and grabbed the bag by the chain to stop it from swinging. “You just gonna stand there all day or do you need something?” he asked without turning around.

Definitely irritated punching.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said calmly, not ruffled by the sharp edge in his tone. She made her way into the room and perched on a stack of ripped and battered retired bags nearest to him. “Maybe I was just enjoying the view,” she said, hoping to make him smile. He didn’t. She sat further back and motioned again to his workout. “By all means,” she said. “Continue. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Steve gave her a long, measured look. “Sure about that?”

She shrugged. “Unless you need to talk,” she said with a calculated lift of her eyebrows.

“Nope,” Steve said and walked in the opposite direction. He approached the nearest strike bag and delivered a series of quick, precise blows. She watched him jab twice, then cross. Uppercut. Jab. Jab. Cross.

_Three, two,_ she thought, a moment before he dropped his hands.

“I’m just being an idiot.”

When he looked up, she met him with a half-smile. “More so than usual?”

“Yeah,” he huffed, surprising her in his agreement. He gave the strike bag another quick beating before he stepped back a second time. “If I tell you, you’re going to tell me that I’m being an idiot and I already know that so there’s really no point in talking it out.”

“Try me,” she insisted. “I may surprise you.”

Steve turned to look at her again and frowned. “Why are you here?” he asked before he shook his head and rushed on. “I mean, what did you come down here for, before you decided to play therapist?”

“Oh,” she shrugged. “Honestly, I was just bored. I was looking to see if anyone wanted to go get breakfast.”

“Maybe later,” he grumbled. “I’m not great company right now.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and got to her feet. “Alright, get off the cross, Rogers. Somebody else needs the wood today.” She bent and reached for the zip-up sweatshirt he’d discarded in a heap by the bags. “Come on,” she held it out, leaving no room for argument in her voice. “I can tell you you’re an idiot over frittata.”

Greek frittata, to be precise. Two fat slices bursting with kalamata olives and feta cheese that were served on two chipped plates at a nearby Greek diner and accompanied by cups of coffee so strong she could practically chew it.  They took their plates from the counter and grabbed a cramped booth in the back corner wnere she could keep her back to the wall and an eye on all of the patrons--none of whom seemed to notice they were there.

“So what’d you do?” she asked around her first mouthful. Mentally, she congratulated herself on making the right call with her breakfast selection.

“Uh, nothing, actually,” Steve said, looking just as surprised by this admission as she was. He shook his head after a moment and his expression darkened again. “I’m really not supposed to be talking about any of this. I’m not even supposed to know about it.”

His frustration began to make more sense. “Is Darcy okay?”

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “She’s fine. She’s…” he let out a heavy breath. “She’s going undercover and I’m not allowed to really know any of the specifics.”

Natasha processed this with a slow nod and another bite. “Long assignment?”

His shoulder moved while he cut into his eggs. “She thinks about six months.”

She grimaced. “Sucks,” she commiserated. “But it’s not like it’s the first time she’s ever done it. Wasn’t she undercover for vice for a year before she got promoted?”

“Two years,” Steve corrected with a glance over his shoulder. There was no one close enough to hear their conversation at this volume. The din of the patrons, the ringing of the service bell and the clang of the old register effectively drowned them out.

“She’ll be fine,” Natasha assured him. “She’s kind of a badass.”

The corner of his lips lifted for a moment before he shook his head. “It’s not the fact that she’s going undercover that’s…”

“Got you acting like an idiot?” she prompted. “Don’t give me details,” she went on. “But it’s got to be the assignment that’s got you all worked up. What is it?”

Steve struggled for a moment before he swiped a frustrated pair of hands down the length of his face. “It’s a wedding,” he said, so quietly she might not have heard him if she wasn’t looking right at him. “Or…six months leading up to a wedding, I guess.”

Natasha frowned. “Seriously?” she asked, wishing she hadn’t brought them to a public place so she could mine him for details.

He nodded before he rolled his eyes. “And I know it’s work,” he said before she could say anything. “Obviously. I’m not worried that she’s gonna—”

“Pretend too hard?” she asked when he fumbled for the right word.

He sighed and jabbed forcefully at another bite of frittata. “And saying any of this out loud would make me sound like a jealous, childish—”

“Hypocrite,” she reminded helpfully. “How many times have we been married or dating for a mission?”

“That’s—”

She held up a finger. “Do _not_ say it’s different because it’s the exact same thing.” She paused and frowned. “You didn’t say any of this to _her_ , did you? Because you’re right. Saying it out loud makes you sound like a real asshole.”

“No,” he said firmly. “I didn’t. And I _know_ it’s the exact same thing,” he groused. “That’s why I feel like an idiot for thinking it’s different. But that doesn’t…” he stopped and fell silent before he shook his head again. “I just don’t…”

Any urge Natasha had to tease him slipped away as she offered him a sympathetic smile. “Don’t want her marrying anyone but you?” she finished for him.

Steve looked up, thoroughly disappointed in himself. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I guess that’s it.”

She took a deep breath and reached across the table to place a hand on his arm. “Get over it, champ.”

He let out a joyless chuckle. “That’s my pep talk?”

She gave him a pat. “Pretty much,” she shrugged and returned to her breakfast. “I should be thanking you,” she added, continuing when he looked up inquisitively. “Listening to your relationship problems is a nice distraction from mine.”

“You’re having relationship problems?” Steve asked, looking grateful for a change in topic.

Natasha wrinkled her nose at how that sounded out loud. “Not problems,” she decided. “And we’re not really…” she frowned. “I don’t know what I’d call me and James except…me and James,” she decided, lamely. “I’d just rather see him in person instead of through a screen for more than fifteen minutes at time.”

Steve nodded with understanding. “Is he still in China?” he asked, digging back into his breakfast with renewed interest.

She nodded. “I think he’s staying until the end of the week. Then he’s going to Queensland.”

Steve frowned. “Not Thailand? I thought he was going there next.”

She shook her head. “He _was_ but he wants to see the reef before it’s too cold.” They smiled at each other for a second and Natasha knew that Steve was trying to picture Bucky— _their_ Bucky—planning the next leg of his extended vacation, snorkeling with tourists and navigating commercial airlines like a regular civilian.

He’d been gone for two months already, having decided that staying in New York for too long made him anxious. There were reports and sightings of him from all over the world, he had told her with that sad, distant look in his eye, and he couldn’t remember anything but his targets. So she’d bought him a book for Christmas, _1001 Places to See_ , and told him to go and make some real memories.

But while Bucky was off making real memories and seeing the world with fresh eyes, and Darcy was undercover making heart-eyes at someone else, she and Steve would be here. Together. Eating their breakfast and pretending they were much better off than either would admit.

Natasha gave Steve’s arm another friendly pat and changed the subject back to work.

 

***

_Day One_

 

This was unexpected.

Darcy wasn’t sure what she was expecting to walk into on her first day of her undercover assignment, but it definitely wasn’t dozens of tabloid photos and articles about Captain America and his unknown lady friend.

“Uh,” she said by way of greeting. The precinct basement had been commissioned as their base of ops until they moved to New Jersey in a month. Agent LaDuke was already there that morning, organizing stacks of paper on the table while another man—one she didn’t recognize—was building a collage of blurry paparazzi photos of her and Steve looking like a pair of ink smudges.

LaDuke looked up and offered a smile that was more welcoming than he’d been a week ago, when he was putting her up to this. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she echoed slowly, not taking her eyes off the board of her photos. “May I ask what the fuck?” she asked in her most polite voice, motioning to the older man who had yet to turn around.

She received a jolt from behind as her distracted partner walked straight into her. “Hey,” Eddie said. “What’s…all this?”

At Eddie’s question the other man turned around and Darcy saw that he was around her dad’s age. Graying, sandy brown hair in an untidy cut, a thick beard and thicker midsection that strained the buttons on his green plaid shirt. He gave them an appraising look before he nodded and glanced at LaDuke. “Wouldn’t have been my first choice.”

Darcy scoffed. “Thank you? Is yours an opinion I’m supposed to give a shit about?”

LaDuke cleared his throat. “Detective Lewis, Detective Kimball, this is Tom Wasylyshyn. Special Agent in Charge—New York and New Jersey.”

Eddie remained blank-faced. “Oh,” he said, his eyes darting from Darcy to LaDuke before landing on the director. “Kind of a dick, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Tom swiped a hand over his beard. “Kinda,” he agreed gruffly, unruffled by their first impressions and glanced from Darcy to Eddie and back again before he shook his head. “Guess we’ll make it work,” he said under his breath before he cleared his throat and pointed to the chairs set at the folding table. “Sit down. We’re already behind.”

They sat and Darcy was sure she’d caught a hint of a northern accent. Not as grating as Minnesota, but maybe one of the Dakotas or, more likely, the unfathomable twinge that haunted the residents of upstate New York. She studied his heavy movements. His less-than-clean jeans and broken in work boots. He looked like every divorced dad in the suburbs of Connecticut. Never in a million years would she have pegged him as a DEA agent—let alone a Special Agent in Charge. Although, she considered as he rolled LaDuke’s corkboard over to them, maybe that was the point.

“I’m gonna make this quick,” he said giving the belt loops of his jeans a yank to settle the waistband back near his hips. “I’m not here to be your scout leader or your coach or your counselor, alright? I’m not a people person—never have been. I’m gonna say a lot of things that are going to piss you off, I’m probably going to tell you to do plenty that you’re not going to want to do over the next four weeks. But I’m not here to make you comfortable,” he continued after Darcy and Eddie had exchanged a nervous look. “I’m here to make sure you stay alive long enough for us to put the cuffs on Baptiste. Which means making this little charade you all cooked up,” he spared a glance back to LaDuke, “look as convincing as possible. I’m senior ranking officer of this operation and I’ll be handling you indirectly through Agent LaDuke so what I say goes, is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” they said quietly, in unison.

“Good,” he said with a nod. “First thing’s first,” he pointed to the corkboard and all of the paparazzi photos. “How public is this?”

Darcy blinked. “My…relationship?” When she was greeted with an expectant look, she croaked with uncertainty. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I mean, everyone knows who Steve is but…” she frowned. “I guess if anyone’s been following the tabloids, they know he’s dating a cop but I’m pretty sure my name’s been kept out of anything official.”

“It has,” Nowicki’s voice from the doorway behind them surprised them both. Darcy turned around with lifted eyebrows as their sergeant came in and took one of the empty folding chairs. “I’ve got a Google alert for anything Captain America related,” he continued. “There’s a lot of rumors and occasionally,” he pointed to the photos, “someone grabs a picture but there’s never been any word on specifics.”

Darcy returned her focus to the front of the room, wondering how often Steve had spotted photographers before she had. The photographic evidence of the last five years of her love life was mostly blurry shots of her hand in Steve’s while he moved quickly ahead of her on a sidewalk, of the two of them eating outdoors where he faced the street and she was only a pair of pale shoulders and messy brown hair. She knew there was nothing to link the two of them online, given her distaste for social media and the ironclad privacy settings that surrounded all of Steve’s rarely-used accounts. If someone were really motivated, she supposed, they could go looking for Steve’s address and find that his wasn’t the only name on the lease.

“What about from Stark’s fundraisers?” Wasylyshyn asked, directing the question to Nowicki this time.

He shook his head. “No press allowed after the first ten minutes,” he said without hesitation. “And I don’t think they’ve ever shown up together.”

Darcy exchanged a look with Eddie before she cleared her throat. “Is there anything else you want to tell me you’ve been keeping tabs on in my relationship, Sarge?’

Nowicki rolled his eyes. “One ‘a my squad starts dating a national icon and you don’t think I’m going do everything I can to make sure it stays under wraps?” He scoffed. “C’mon, Lewis.”

Darcy shot her sergeant a quick, grateful smile as Wasylyshyn cleared his throat again. “Let’s hope it stays that way,” he said gruffly. “In the meantime, before you’re put in front of any of Hayes’ people, we’ve gotta do whatever we can to make you look as different from this girl as possible,” he pointed to one of the clearer pictures. “And it wouldn’t hurt if he started spending time with some other women, just to be safe.”

Beside her, Eddie snorted. “Does Steve even _know_ any other women?” he asked with a grin. “Other than the like, five he’s talked to in the last ten years?”

Darcy chuckled. “I’ll uh,” she coughed and tried to smother her smile at the look Wasylyshyn shot her. “I’ll run it by him,” she promised. “Can’t guarantee anything, though. He’s not really a social butterfly.”

“Do what you can,” Wasylyshyn said gruffly before he pointed to the photos again. “But this girl’s not getting photographed anymore until this whole thing is over.” In the photo directly beneath his finger, she was wearing large sunglasses in that one, but if you squinted you could make out some of her features. “I’m talking blonde hair, lose the glasses, and—” he paused and frowned. “Normally I’d tell you to gain about fifteen pounds, but we don’t have time for that. We’ll just have to put you in tighter clothes.”

“I can gain the weight if you think it’ll help,” she said quickly, not wanting to seem uncommitted.

But he shook his head. “The clothes’ll have the same effect and anyway,” he shrugged. “There’s no promising you’d gain it in the right places.”

She frowned, wondering if she should be offended by that. But Wasylyshyn had already moved on to Eddie. “You got any famous partners we need to know about?” he asked, raising a bushy eyebrow. Eddie scoffed and shook his head in response. “Good,” Wasylyshyn said with a nod. “How do you look with a beard and glasses?”

“Like a douche,” Darcy said without hesitation.

Eddie looked offended for all of two seconds before he sighed. “No, she’s right. I look like a real douche.”

“Good,” Wasylyshyn repeated. “Stop shaving.”

“Are you going to make him look fat too?” Darcy couldn’t help but ask.

“No,” Wasylyshyn said without room for argument. “He can stay as-is. “

“Don’t worry, Lewis,” Eddie said, shooting a smile her way. “I’ll still pretend to love you, no matter how you look.”

She rolled her eyes as Wasylyshyn cleared his throat again. “Speaking of. Identities.” LaDuke handed them each a file of loose paper. “Everything you need to know about who you’re gonna be for the next six months is in that folder. You need to memorize it and then get rid of it as soon as possible.”

Darcy flipped her folder open and looked at the proof of her new driver’s license. They were waiting to print until they had a decent photo of her new self to plug into the little blank square, but the rest of the information was ready to go. She wrinkled her nose. “Lynette Desiree Hayes?” she read before she glanced up. “What Atlantic City stripper are we pretending gave me that name?”

“Back of page three,” LaDuke said casually. “She wasn’t a stripper. And you go by Lynnie.”

“That’s really not much better,” she muttered, leafing through until she found what she was looking for and rolled her eyes at the stereotype they’d cooked up for her. “My mistake,” she said. “Blackjack dealer.”

“She’s also dead,” Eddie commented, reading over her shoulder. “Show some respect.”

Darcy let out a sound of annoyance as she read that Dawn Meeks—a woman with no photo who had allegedly given birth to her in the winter of 1986—had worked in numerous casinos up and down the Jersey shore from 1983 to 2015, when she’d died in a car accident on the turnpike. “Great, now I feel guilty for making fun of my fake, dead mom.” She glanced to her partner. “What’d you get?”

“Daniel Boyd Williams,” he read, and shrugged. “That’s not so bad.”

“It’s better than mine,” she huffed. “Any tales of woe in your past?”

Eddie’s brow furrowed as he skimmed the pages. “Uh, no,” he said after a minute. “Doesn’t look like it. Says I grew up in Chicago—normal family, normal childhood, then I came east to go to NYU—” he stopped and looked up. “Hey, I actually went there.”

“We know,” LaDuke and Wasylyshyn said together, before LaDuke added, “This way you won’t have to fumble if someone asks you about it. It’s unlikely,” he conceded. “But you never know.”

It was Darcy’s turn to be a backseat reader. “Daniel Williams has a Master’s in chemistry?” she asked dubiously.

Eddie scoffed. “Eddie Kimball has a Master’s in criminal psych,” he reminded indignantly. “It’s not that far out of the realm of possibility.”

She shook her head and turned back to her own new identity. She flipped to a page labeled _Recent History_ and felt her features shift into an expression that felt more than a little murderous. “Until three years ago I was working in Wildwood,” she read, hoping that if she said the words out loud, they would shift into something less ridiculous. “As a _fortune teller_?”

Eddie glanced over before he returned his eyes to his folder. “Apparently that’s where we met.”

“Why does he get the Master’s degree and the nice Chicago family and I get the mad-libs of Jersey rat boardwalk trash stereotypes?” Darcy demanded.

Wasylyshyn shrugged. “You drew the short straw,” he said. “I gotta make it seem like you grew up with Wallace Hayes as a dad,” he reminded her. “He’s a kinda walking mad-lib of Jersey rat boardwalk trash stereotypes.”

Darcy crossed her arms over her chest. “Is it too late to change my mind?”

Her answer came from three corners of the room as Wasylyshyn, LaDuke, and Nowicki assured her with a single word that it was.

 

_Day Thirteen_

 

Jozelyn’s brown eyes shifted back and forth from Darcy to Eddie. “Guys, come on,” she said impatiently. “Be grown-ups. You _have_ to do this.”

Darcy’s nose wrinkled. “Do we have to do it right now?”

Joz rolled her eyes. “You’ve put it off for two weeks,” she reminded them. “You’re starting to piss off Wasylyshyn and he doesn’t want to work with you until you get over your hang-ups and start acting like a couple.” She pointed to Eddie, who was shifting his weight from one foot to another, studying a dark spot on the concrete floor. “Kiss her.”

With an expression that said he’d rather be having his teeth drilled, Eddie took a deep inhale through his nose and grabbed Darcy by the shoulders. He gave her a rough yank forward and crashed their lips together in a quick, dry, barely-there kiss.

“I hate it,” Darcy declared.

“Me too,” Eddie agreed.

“I _also_ hate it,” Jozelyn said from her place on the folding table and swung her feet back and forth. “I thought you two were professionals.”

“Look,” Darcy huffed, taking a step back. “I can play lovey-dovey bride-to-be for six months if it means putting away a bunch of bad guys, I promise. But it feels _really_ weird to be practicing this—especially in front of people.”

Eddie had crossed his arms again and nodded. “I don’t know how, but it’s actually _weirder_ than kissing your sister.”

“Maybe we can pretend one of us is some weird religion that doesn’t believe in kissing until marriage,” Darcy suggested, trying to lighten the mood.

“Or I could play a germaphobe who can’t stand the idea of letting another person’s saliva in my mouth,” Eddie suggested with a grin.

“Yes, I like that,” she said. “We should—”

“Hey!” Joz snapped her fingers and hopped down. “You two not being able to do your job _isn’t_ funny.” Darcy and Eddie both fell silent, their smile dissolving like those of two kids caught doing something they shouldn’t.  “Get this shit out of your system now,” she demanded. “Because if you fuck up and blow this cover because you two can’t suck face like adults then all this is for nothing and any more kids that end up in barrels of formaldehyde are on _you_ guys.”

Darcy opened her mouth to refute this but closed it again. Rodriguez was right and any indication that this wedding was a job or a cover would blow the whole thing and probably result in a lot of dead bodies. Most likely hers and Eddie’s included.

She took a deep breath and looked at her partner. “Think of the dead kids,” she said with a steadying nod.

Eddie mirrored her grim expression. “Thinking of the dead kids.”

He stepped toward her and into her personal space. He brought one hand up to rest on her cheek before he closed his eyes and leaned in, sealing his lips to hers. Slower, this time. Softer. The way Darcy had to imagine he kissed Becca and absolutely nothing like how Steve kissed her. She leaned into him anyway and let her arms wind slowly around his neck.

“Fucking _finally,_ ” Jozelyn grumbled when they broke apart and they stepped back from each other. “That was good,” she added, softening a little. “Looked real.”

Eddie swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and licked his lips. “Am I tasting pickles?” he asked with a grimace.

Darcy frowned. “On me?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, dumbass. On the other woman I just kissed two seconds ago. Seriously, Lewis, _why_ do you taste like pickles? It’s nine o’clock in the morning. Nine o’clock in the morning is not an acceptable time for pickles.”

“Fuck off,” she snapped. “All I’ve had today was…” she stopped herself. “Just kidding. There was relish on my breakfast sandwich. My bad.”

“That’s disgusting,” he informed her plainly.

“No, it’s _really_ good,” she insisted. “I’ll share with you tomorrow.”

Joz rolled her eyes. “Okay, my work here is done,” she declared. “I’m going back upstairs.”

“Thanks for yelling at us, J-Rod,” Darcy called as she retreated up the stairs.

“Anytime,” she called back.

Eddie was shaking his head when she looked back at him. “Pickles at nine in the morning,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Steve’s even more of a hero than I thought, putting up with that shit.”

Darcy treated her best friend to both of her middle fingers.

 

_Day Nineteen_

Driscoll looked up from his own notes and caught Darcy’s expression. “Lewis, what’s wrong? You’re…brooding,” he said, choosing the word carefully.

“This is really bothering me,” she said, as she tapped her pen against her folder of personal history. “These two make absolutely no sense together,” she pointed to her file and then Eddie’s. “A boardwalk fortune teller and an NYU chemistry grad?” She wrinkled her nose and looked at her partner. “Do you think she’s supposed to be using him?”

The DEA had left them alone for the day which had, at first, felt like a vacation. But it was only a few short hours before they’d started digging deeper into their backstories. Deeper than Wasylyshyn usually let them get when he was running their schedules.

Driscoll and Nowicki shared a glance.

Eddie frowned. “I hope not.”

“But I mean, she’s gotta be manipulative,” Darcy went on. “Right? Or at least capable of a good scam. Fortune telling’s mostly vague notions and hoop earrings, but you’ve gotta make people believe what you’re saying if you want to make any money.”

“You think that’s why she’s with Danny?” Nowicki asked. “She sees him as a meal ticket and a way to get a piece of her dad’s business?”

“That’s so gross,” Darcy said as Eddie dropped into the chair next to her. “Danny doesn’t deserve that.”

“Damn straight,” Eddie grumbled. “But I can totally see why he’d fall for _her_ though,” he added. “Look at how boring he’s been so far. She probably read his palm and told him that he was going to meet some exotic stranger who’d turn his world upside down—”

“So maybe Lynnie was tired of reading fortunes and wanted some of the cash her dad’s always throwing around,” Nowicki suggested, like he was pitching a theory about a crime scene. “She meets Danny, realizes he’s a nice, gullible guy who knows his way around a chemistry set, decides she can get him to pretty much do whatever she wants…”

“Except she fell in love with him,” Driscoll spoke up, pulling the attention of all three of them to his side of the room. “For real. And she told him to stop cooking, that she didn’t want him tangled up in all of her father’s dirty money.”

“But Danny’s not just some nerd from NYU,” Eddie piped in, a spark of inspiration in his eyes. “But he’s used to nobody paying attention to him and uses it to his advantage to eavesdrop. And one day, seemingly out of nowhere, Danny overheard one of Hayes’ guys say something about Lynn’s mom’s car accident.”

“But it _wasn’t_ out of nowhere,” Driscoll chimed in. “Hayes told his guys that Lynnie just got the last of her mother’s affairs wrapped up and he wanted to make sure there were no loose ends,” he dropped his chin on the last two words and eyed them all meaningfully.

Nowicki’s eyes widened. “Because Lynn’s mom was going to go to the cops and turn Hayes in!” he exclaimed excitedly. “So, some members of his crew fucked with her car before she took it on the turnpike.”

Driscoll nodded solemnly. “And not just his crew,” he said. “Danny knows for sure that Wallace himself was in on the hit.”

“Bastard,” Nowicki said, shaking his head.

“And when Danny tells Lynnie this,” Eddie picked up the ball. “She decides that they’re going to play along for a little while and learn everything they need to know so when the time is right, they can tip off the feds and get away clean with all the money he never paid in child support.”

Driscoll snapped his fingers and pointed to Eddie. “You’re goddamn right, son. You’re goddamn right.”

A heavy, pensive silence fell over the room before Darcy broke it with a short, stunned laugh. “I fucking love you guys.”

_Day Twenty-four_

Darcy could not control the look of disgust that came over her face as Wallace Hayes was escorted into the diner where she waited with Eddie, Driscoll, LaDuke and Wasylyshyn. “What’s wrong, baby girl?” he said with a smile that turned her stomach while he dropped heavily into one of the empty chairs around their table. “Not happy to see me?”

It had been a pleasant month without him, despite the rigorous identity training she and Eddie had been going through and the ever-present reminder that screwing up in anyway would likely mean a botched operation and possibly a bullet to the head. Driscoll had outfitted Hayes with one of Stark’s tracking chips—exactly like the kind they’d given Bucky when he’d appeared a few years ago—embedded in the thick skin of his neck and untraceable to anyone without the right receiver. They’d been monitoring his movements since he stepped outside the precinct, allegedly cleared on a technicality. He’d started spending more time in Asbury Park the closer they got to go-time, and according to his movements and the UCs keeping tabs on him, he was doing everything as instructed.

Before Darcy could answer, Hayes motioned to her head and the liberal streaks of blonde and red that had been slowly added to her hair over the course of the month she’d spent in preparation. The color had been first, one highlighting session at a time until she was almost entirely strawberry blonde before the stylist had lobbed off five inches and cut in choppy layers and bangs a few days earlier.

Hayes frowned. “I liked you better dark,” he commented.

“Well, I liked you better with your face in the concrete, so I guess we’ll both have to live with the disappointment,” Darcy responded, reaching for her coffee.

Agent LaDuke aimed his typical glower in Hayes’ direction. “Shut up, Mr. Hayes. We don’t have time to pretend to care about your preferences. You’re here to report on your progress.”

“Can I get a cup of coffee or something?”

“No,” Driscoll clipped. “Talk.”

Hayes sat back and clasped his hands together on the table. “Every ear I’ve got is buying that I’m a free man.”

Beside her, Eddie seemed to relax a fraction. “That’s good to hear.”

“Yeah, well,” Hayes shrugged. “NYPD fuckin’ up isn’t exactly science fiction.”

“What else?” LaDuke pressed as Darcy opened her mouth to respond to the dig.

“I did what you told me,” he said, pointing his thick eyebrows at the pair of DEA agents. “Started talkin’ about my little girl movin’ home next week. Told ‘em she’s the reason we’ve got this new ice to move.”

Driscoll took a gulp of his coffee. “And how’s that going?”

Hayes’ shoulder moved again. “People are excited to meet you, sweet tits,” he said with a lascivious grin in Darcy’s direction.

“You know most people don’t refer to their daughter as ‘sweet tits’,” she said with a lift of her eyebrows. “Right?”

“Well forgive me, honey, I never got your first name.”

“It’s Detective,” Darcy said flatly. “And as far as pet names for this operation go, maybe try to come up with something that’s not going to make me want to vomit, huh?”

He chuckled, much to her continued disgust. “What’s your daddy call you, then?”

“Oh, as _if_ I’m going to share a scrap of personal information with you,” she scoffed.

“Enough,” Driscoll interrupted their sniping. “People are excited to meet her?” he repeated, dragging them back to the subject.

“Sure are,” Hayes assured him. “Even got one ‘a my guys looking for apartments for you kids,” he said with a chuckle. “Salt ‘a the earth, these guys.”

“Yeah, a regular batch of choir boys you’re running with,” Eddie said dryly. “Can’t wait to meet them all myself.”

“Well right now, they’re more interested in the product than you,” Hayes said. “I need more of that rock to keep ‘em hungry before you get into town.”

“Agent LaDuke will handle that for you,” Wasylyshyn spoke up finally before he moved his eyes from Hayes to Darcy and back again. “More important, you three better put a lid on whatever’s going on here,” he said motioning to the charged, angry air between Hayes and both detectives. As if he didn’t know. “You’re supposed to be a family. Maybe not the closest. Maybe not the most functional, but still a family.”

“That’s right,” Hayes put in with another grin. “So, if you wanna start calling me Daddy, that’d be okay.”

Darcy gulped. “I would _literally_ rather light myself on fire,” she assured him before she felt Driscoll’s eyes on her in a glare of disapproval. She shot a look of indignation back. “I’ll call him Dad or Pops or something,” she promised. “Or, y’know, since according to my shitty backstory,” she added, pointing her resentment toward LaDuke and Wasylyshyn. “I didn’t even meet him ‘til I was fifteen, maybe it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for me to just call him Wallace.”

“Dad is fine,” LaDuke said with a tone that left no room for argument.

Darcy resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest and huff like a teenager. “Dad it is.”

 

***

 

_Day 32_

She should be sleeping. She knew that. Sleeping or curling herself around Steve to savor as much of him as she could while she still had time.

But she wasn’t doing either. Instead, she was sitting at her desk in the office, the case files for Kahlila Green, Charlie Washington, and Doyle Bonds spread out in front of her. They’d clipped recent photos of each teen to the front of their file to spare anyone from looking at how they’d been discovered. She knew these files backwards. Where they had last been seen. How long it took for anyone to miss them. Where they went to school, where they liked to hang out with their friends, who had finally been the one to report them missing. What part of the river they’d been found in. How many bullet holes. How much decomp.

She jumped at the feeling of hands on her shoulders and looked up, sheepishly, into Steve’s curious expression. “Hey.”

He smiled softly. “Hey,” he echoed. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t sleep,” Darcy wet her lips and turned her attention back to her files. “I just…” she paused and pushed a heavy breath out of her lungs. “I can’t imagine what kind of person builds using kids like this into his business model,” she said quietly.

“Darcy…”

“You know what all they had in common?” she asked, glancing back for a second. “Almost nothing. Except that they were broke kids from shitty neighborhoods where no one would think twice about them running away.” She shook her head and touched Kahlila’s bright smile from her ninth-grade school picture. “And what he did to them,” she added sadly. “That’s all.”

“That’s not all,” Steve said and bent to kiss the top of her head before he dropped another kiss to her temple. “They have you.” He reached out and closed the file from beneath her hands and spun her chair around to face him. “Which is more than I’m going to have for the next six months,” he reminded, making her smile with the glint in his eyes. “So, you need to come back to bed, Detective. Right now.”

Grateful he had interrupted her thoughts before they got any darker, Darcy let Steve take her hands and pull her to her feet.

 

 

The morning came too soon and before she knew it, Wasylyshyn had texted her to say he was on his way and reminded her to shut off her cell phone after responding to his message. She had a new one waiting for her—along with the rest of her new identity.

She closed her eyes and savored the feeling of Steve’s hands on her cheeks, resenting the lump that rose in her throat when he tilted her face up for a kiss while they waited for her car. “You’re going to be fine,” he told her softly, his forehead pinned to hers.

Darcy nodded. “Yeah,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I will be.” She sniffed unintentional and kissed him again. “And I’ll be careful,” she promised. “And I’ll be home before you know it.”

“Yeah,” he echoed. “You will be.”

Wasylyshyn’s beat up Lincoln pulled to a stop across the street and Darcy forced herself to pull away, not letting go of Steve’s hand until the last possible moment. “Don’t wait up,” she said as lightly as she could when she reached the door. Like this was a regular shift she was heading for and not a six-month sentence among drug dealers and killers.

Steve’s smile was just as forced. “Never do,” he lied, the way they always did when one or the other was leaving. “I love you,” he said when her hand was on the doorknob. Darcy swallowed the urge to cry and was about to respond when he added, “but I _hate_ the blonde.”

Darcy’s snort was loud, and it hurt her nose as she felt her shoulders shake with a much-needed laugh. “You’re a jackass,” she assured him.

“I know,” Steve said with a grin. “Go knock ‘em dead.”

Eddie was waiting in the backseat for her and offered her his hand when she closed the door behind her. “Ready to roll, Lynnie?” he asked, looking at her over the tops of his glasses.

Darcy nodded and forced herself not to look back as they pulled away and her apartment disappeared behind them. “Sure,” she said and squeezed his hand. “Why not?”

From the passenger seat, LaDuke passed back a rattling cardboard box the size of a deck of cards. “Pick one,” he said without preamble.

Darcy frowned and took the box hesitantly. She pulled it open and felt her stomach flip with another wave of anxiety. In the box, tumbling together without any sort of ceremony, was a handful of diamond engagement rings. Darcy frowned and studied them quickly, turning a few over to examine the size of the stones and the sturdiness of the prongs. “I don’t know,” she said finally and handed it to Eddie. “You pick.”

He rolled his eyes and plucked one from the middle of the pile. It was white gold and home to a large solitaire diamonds that Darcy could tell immediately was going to catch on everything and drive her crazy. He barely looked at her as took her left hand and slid it onto her finger without waiting for her approval. “There,” he said with a shrug. “What do you think?”

She looked down at her hand and frowned. It looked so much more alien than it had a moment ago. The stone made her knuckle look closer than it had before, making her finger look shorter somehow, and much more noticeable. Her nails, her chewed-on cuticles, even her freckles didn’t look like hers anymore. “I hate it,” she declared before she looked up with a smile. “It’s perfect.”

Darcy Lewis and Eddie Kimball stayed behind when the car reached the airport.

It was Lynnie Hayes and Danny Williams from here on out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name Wasylyshyn is a real name of a real guy involved in the real-life sting on which this story is based. It's not just me being a masochist. 
> 
> Also, I borrowed a line or two from Angel again.
> 
> \---
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Share the love on Tumblr @idontgettechnology and check out ishipitpod.com for more fanfic fun
> 
> *blows kisses*


	4. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long, hot, summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, I was wondering when this was going to happen. Behold: the chapter I was super excited to write and ended up loathing entirely. These things, they happen.

 

 Chapter Three

 

_Nothing like planning a wedding to make you want to punch_ _everyone you know in the throat_

_Some ecards-wedding edition #19_

 

 

_April_

She’d known this was going to happen—this was all part of the plan, part of what she’d been prepping for. But while she’d gone over every detail of her new identity and knew the game plan for the next six months better than the back of her hand, Darcy hadn’t really considered how hard it was going to be to be around these people without the ability to arrest them.

From her barstool, Darcy could count eleven weapons, two different deals being made, and at least five grand changing hands. And she’d only been there for half an hour—at the most. Vice had not been like this, she decided with another cursory scan of the room. Vice had been mostly waiting in uncomfortable clothing. Making arrests before anything serious happened. Checking in with the other girls to make sure they were okay without arousing suspicion. Trying to put a stop to what was usually a victimless crime.

But this—watching all this going on around her—at a party where she was the guest of honor, no less, was twisting her stomach a little tighter with each passing minute.

She jumped at the feeling of Eddie’s hand on the small of her back. He pressed his lips to her temple, close enough to whisper, “You okay?” before he pulled away, turning her on the stool to face him.

Darcy nodded quickly while brightened her smile. “There you are,” she said loudly, her freshly adopted south Jersey accent just enough to grate her own nerves. “I was gettin’ lonely.” She looped an arm loosely around his waist.

“I was just makin’ friends,” he said with a shy, but easy smile when she leaned into him. He pointed to the corner booth where Hayes had set up shop with a handful of other men. “Your dad wants to introduce us to a few of his guys.”

She slipped off the barstool and let Eddie tangle his fingers with hers while he led her across the room. Most of the guests—scattered around the bar, the dance floor, and a few booths—didn’t acknowledge them, but Darcy noted the ones who did. _Tall, bald, goatee,_ she noted of the first man she made eye contact with. _Suspicious._ He nodded and gave her a polite smile in return when she waved at him.

 _Super-thick neck_ , she thought of the next man, this one tucked into a booth with his arm around a girl who looked young enough to be his daughter. _Bad skin. Huge eyebrows._

“Hey, there’s my baby girl!” Wallace Hayes’ voice broke her focus and drew her eyes back to where Eddie had led them.

“Present and accounted for,” she said brightly.

For his part, Hayes did look at her with something resembling affection—considerably less sleaze than she was used to. “You havin’ a good time, sweetheart?”

“Of course I am,” Darcy insisted. “But you really didn’t have to do all this, Dad,” she added. “I thought when you said you wanted us to meet your friends, you were gonna have a dinner party or somethin’,” she punctuated her admission with a deep, irritating laugh she’d copied from someone on an MTV reality show. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the way Eddie’s jaw clenched, trying not to laugh at the sound.

“Your pops’ll use any excuse for a party,” a man closest to her at the end of the booth quipped with a grin.

“Speaking of,” Hayes spoke up again. “That’s Harvey,” he pointed to the man who’d spoken before he went counter clock-wise with the table’s three other occupants.  “Riz, Cole, and of course,” he gave her a look. “This here’s Phendy.”

“Phendy,” she repeated with a nod. “Of course.”

“Good to meet you, man,” Eddie broke in and leaned across the table to shake the younger man’s hand. He was skinny, beady dark eyes and close-cropped dark hair contrasted with his pale skin. “Heard a lot about you.”

Darcy wanted to slam the heel of her hand into her forehead. Phendy. P.Hendricks. Peter Hendricks, Hayes’ right-hand man in New Jersey. She’d only seen him in surveillance photos, usually skulking behind Hayes, serving as lookout.

She didn’t have time to dwell on her near-stumble. She raised her eyebrows expectantly before she laughed again. “So now that we’re all good n’ friendly, who’s gonna scooch over so we can sit?” For effect, she leaned further into the table so the men could see her kick up her right foot and show off the stilettos she’d strapped to her feet. “Help a girl out, fellas.”

By the time she’d set her foot back down, Darcy was fairly certain that the eyeful of cleavage she’d had to sacrifice was enough to gloss over her pause in introductions.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Wasylyshyn grumbled when she relayed this hiccough the next morning.

The briefing room they’d created in Asbury Park was even less inviting than the basement of the precinct. They were squeezed into the back room of the convenience store and sandwich shop three blocks from their hotel. A retired federal agent was stationed behind the counter. She looked to be about sixty and wore a nametag that said Li Jing, though Darcy had no way of knowing if that was her real name.

The rule was that they were to walk to the store from their hotel together every third morning. If Li Jing was at the register, they would go to the back and wait for LaDuke or Wasylyshyn to let them in. Briefings would last between fifteen and forty-five minutes. And if there was no Li Jing, there would be no briefing.

“She covered fine,” Eddie said, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against a pallet of canned refried beans. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It _is_ a big deal,” Wasylyshyn countered as LaDuke finally joined them.

“What’s a big deal?” he asked, looking concerned as he glanced from Darcy to Eddie and back to Wasylyshyn.

“I forgot a nickname,” Darcy admitted. “Phendy—I’ve only heard him called that twice and it took me a minute to remember who he was.”

“And in that minute,” Wasylyshyn plowed ahead, “who knows how much credibility you compromised.”

“Wasylyshyn,” Even LaDuke looked taken aback. “It was the first meeting—if Kimball says she played it off then I’m guessing she played it off.”

“Seriously,” Eddie grumbled, rubbing tiredly at his eyes with one hand. “What is your problem?”

“My problem?” Wasylyshyn repeated. “My problem is that I have exactly one chance to nail Baptiste’s ass to the wall and I’m stuck with the B-Team.”

“B-Team?” Darcy stood up, her chair shoving back as she did so. “Listen, asshole, I’m sorry I don’t have Jason Statham’s phone number to give you, but we’re only here, risking _our_ lives because _your_ organization doesn’t think it’s necessary to hire more than one woman every fifteen years to do field work. You might want to remember this the next time you’re at a job fair.”

Wasylyshyn blinked. His head retracted a fraction of an inch. He and Darcy stared at one another for a long beat before he cleared his throat. “Who else was there?”

The rapid return to the relevant topic almost knocked her backward. “Three guys aside from Phendy,” she said, forcing her memory to cooperate. “One was his usual muscle, Harvey,” she accepted the binder LaDuke offered and let it fall open on the table. She flipped through the plastic sheets and pointed to a surveillance photo J-Rod had taken during the winter when Hayes’ New Jersey crew had come north for a meeting. “And him,” she pointed to the next page. “Riz.”

“Thomas Rizieri,” Wasylyshyn said with a nod. “Anyone else?”

They went through the book and pointed out the guests, matching faces with names and rap sheets. With each face she placed, Darcy felt sicker and sicker knowing the kind of people she’d been rubbing elbows with.

“There were a few new people too,” Eddie said once they’d identified most of the major players. “I’ll get names if they’re at the next meeting.”

The next meeting. The official introduction to Hayes’ business.

This was how they were going to spend the next six months. Being taught the ins and outs of how Hayes and his crew ran their drugs up into New York and over to Philadelphia; figuring out how Danny’s cooking operation was going to fit and smooth out the issues they’d been having with maintaining a consistent supply.

Nightly meetings. Morning briefings. Family dinners with Hayes and his inner circle on Sunday nights. Living this character enamored with her fiancé and thrilled to have a place in her father’s business.

And keeping a count in the back of her mind of how many days remained until this whole thing would be over.

 

 

 

 

_May_

 

When Becca opened the door, her face shifted quickly from confusion to a welcoming smile and back to confusion within a matter of seconds. “Hey stranger,” she greeted while she hitched Winne higher up onto her hip. “What’s up?”

“Hi,” Steve echoed, suddenly feeling like perhaps this was a stupid idea. “Do you…want some groceries?”

Becca’s head tilted to the side and took in the four brown paper bags of groceries at his feet. “Huh?”

Steve’s shoulders dropped. “I was at the grocery store,” he said. “I thought that maybe you might…” he shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I know you’ve got your hands full with the kids and I figured—”

Her face softened and she bit back a smile. “You buy too much food?”

He sighed. “It’s not that I _can’t_ eat it all—”

She grinned and stepped backward from the door, beckoning him inside with a jerk of her head. “I’m not going to turn down a grocery delivery,” she assured him. “Especially because, yeah,” she bounced Winnie, pulling a giggle from the eighteen-month old. “Being a single mom sucks.”

Steve brought the bags inside and took them to the kitchen. On the way they walked through the living room, strewn with toys, Shawn’s soccer equipment, and a basket of unfolded laundry. “Can’t imagine,” he admitted. “Everything been okay, though?” he asked. “I mean, all things considered.”

Becca followed and popped Winnie into her highchair to begin emptying the bags. “What are we?” she asked, peering around him to squint at the wall calendar. “Six weeks into this?” She exhaled and pulled open the cabinets. “We’re fine,” she shrugged. “But two kids?” she glanced around the kitchen which, much like the rest of the house, could use some attention. “Definitely harder than one. And way worse on your own.” Becca stopped and examined the food she was unloading. “Steve?”

“Yeah?” he looked up from placing a bottle of orange juice in the refrigerator.

She held up a box of fruit snacks and Oreos. “This is kid food.”

He shrugged unconvincingly. “Is it?”

Becca narrowed her eyes. “I thought you just said you over-shopped.”

Steve stood all the way up and closed the fridge. “I hate shopping for one person,” he admitted. “I was done in ten minutes and then I didn’t have anything else to do for the rest of the night.”

“Seriously?” she asked, leaning against the counter again. “You went grocery shopping for us because you’re bored.”

He closed the refrigerator. “Apparently?”

“You really don’t have to do that,” she assured him kindly. “Isn’t there some…” she paused, “I don’t know, _avenging_ that needs to happen?”

“Not really.”

It sounded ridiculous, even to him, that someone who saved the world on a regular basis couldn’t seem to fill his calendar without his girlfriend. But despite the impressive title on his business card—if he had them—the truth was that his work calendar just wasn’t that full. They were monitoring several different threats—a lead on some other-worldly tech in Belarus, a potentially stolen election in Honduras, an arms dealer in Sweden. But his professional life had shifted toward a whole lot of wait-and-see.

And it was Thursday night. Thursday night was grocery night whether Darcy was home or not.

Before Becca could respond, Winnie slammed her palms on the tray of her highchair and then extended her chubby arms toward her mother. “Up!” she cried. “Up, up!”

Without skipping a beat, Becca crossed the small kitchen and scooped Winnie up again. “Seriously?” She reached into the drying rack and offered the baby a bright red teething ring to mash against her gums.

“Yeah.” He reached for the bag of frozen food and started restocking the freezer with chicken breasts and ice cream bars. “Look, the last thing I expected when Darcy took this assignment was to be sitting at home, wringing my hands for six months with nothing to do because the world just decided to stay saved for once but…”  He turned back around to find Becca and Winnie both studying him, identically skeptical looks on their faces and he sighed again.

His boredom bothered him. There were only so many hours he could log at the gym, sparring with Nat, or helping to decode old Cold War files at the tower before he started going crazy. “I don’t know,” he said quickly. “I just thought…. You’ve got the kids and your job and,” he hurried on, “it’s not that I think you _need_ help, but I thought, if I’m here, not doing anything, maybe I could take something off your plate?”

“Sold,” Becca said with a swift nod, immediately putting to rest his concern that she would be offended by his offer. That she’d see it as some slight against her ability to handle her part of this assignment.

Steve felt his eyebrows lift. “Really?” he asked. “You don’t mind?”

Becca scoffed. “Steve, look at this place,” she motioned to the messy living room and kitchen. “Pick a piece of crazy and dig in. You wanna bring me groceries, I’m not going to say no. Plus,” she set Winnie down when she started wriggling impatiently. “You obviously need a distraction.”

Steve frowned. “It’s that obvious?”

“Baby, you shined your shoes to go grocery shopping,” she stated, pointing to his brown leather shoes, where the afternoon light had caught the shine he’d polished into the toe just that morning. “Not that I blame you,” she added after a moment. “If I didn’t have two minions to chase around, I’d probably just be sitting around, trying not to think about what’s going on in New Jersey, obsessing about every last detail that could go wrong and how many different ways Eddie could end up in a body bag, thinking about all the things he’s missing, trying to remember to write down when big things happen so I can tell him later, counting the seconds until he can come home, jumping out of my skin every time the phone rings—” she stopped herself with a thoughtful frown.

Steve smiled sympathetically. “Good thing you’re not doing that.”

Before Becca could respond, they were interrupted by the sound of Winnie crashing headfirst into the entertainment center and promptly dissolving into tears.

 

With Darcy and Eddie both in New Jersey, there was an extra unmarked vehicle taking up space in front of their apartment. It wasn’t much—nicer than the rundown Subaru the department had once lent Darcy to track a lead down to DC—but it was four wheels and a motor that they’d been sharing for the last year. Usually, the car split its time between Eddie’s driveway and Steve and Darcy’s street, but since Becca had her own car, it had been living exclusively with Steve for almost two months.

He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be driving it. But it made running errands a whole lot easier. Especially when those errands involved picking Shawn up from soccer practice.

The nine-year-old clambered into the back seat and immediately rolled the window down to wave to his teammates.

“How was practice, pal?” Steve asked, forgetting to signal as he pulled out of his parking space.

“It was fine,” Shawn said with a noncommittal shrug. “Except Hayden Bittner doesn’t believe that you’re Captain America.”

Steve frowned and caught Shawn’s eye in the rearview mirror. “What?”

“He was showing off ‘cause his dad knows someone who works for the Knicks or something so they always get free tickets and I said that wasn’t that cool because _my_ dad knows Captain America and you hang out at our house all the time.” He frowned. “But he didn’t believe me.” Shawn looked thoughtful for another second. “Do you think next week you could like, pick up a car or something when you come get me?”

Steve snorted and shook his head. “I’ll think about it,” he promised.

But the next week, lifting a car wasn’t necessary when one of Shawn’s teammates caught sight of the shield he’d conveniently left in plain sight in the backseat.

 

_June_

Darcy didn’t like the way Phendy was looking at her. She actually _never_ liked the way Phendy looked at her—always balanced somewhere between leering and studying her with doubt. Their meetings had gotten easier over the last two months as she and Eddie had both relaxed more into their roles and had been welcomed into Hayes’ inner circle. It was easier than she thought just to sit back and listen to these men incriminate themselves, taking notes with her eyes, logging dates and times from the stories they told.

But Phendy had never quite warmed to her. She wasn’t sure if it was her initial stumble upon meeting him or something else, but the suspicion in his eyes was enough to set her teeth on edge every time she caught him looking at her.

“Do what you gotta do to put the kibosh on that shit,” Wasylyshyn had instructed at their last briefing, hooking her with a meaningful look over his glasses. “Someone that close to the top? We can’t afford to have him thinking anything other than thoughts you put in his head.”

With that in mind, Darcy arched her back and stretched her arms over her head. The too-tight shirt she wore rode up and exposed a few inches of her belly, catching just enough of her target’s attention. “Something I can help you with, Phendy?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrows.

He shook his head. “Course not.”

“You sure?” She noted that Hayes and Eddie had stopped their conversation and were listening for Phendy’s response.

To her surprise, the tops of Phendy’s ears turned pink. “Nah, Lynnie,” he shook his head again. “I’se just uh…” he coughed, looking suddenly nervous under her inquisitive gaze. “I was wonderin’ where you been all this time,” he shrugged. “That’s all. Y’know, ‘cause I known your Pops for a long time and it just seems like,” he coughed again, more nervous as Hayes dropped back into the chair beside him. “Seems like this new partnership’s kinda comin’ outta nowhere.”

“You accusin’ my little girl of something?” Hayes asked, surprising Darcy with his readiness to play along.

She held up a hand. “It’s fine, Dad,” she shrugged. “It’s a valid question.” Eddie came to stand behind her and dropped his hands onto her shoulders possessively. At the very least, she told herself, if something went wrong here, he had her back. Darcy flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned another smile in Phendy’s direction. “Last thing I want is your boy thinking I’ve got something to hide,” she said to Hayes, not letting her eyes leave her mark’s. “Ask me whatever you want, sweetheart,” she prompted. “I’ve got no secrets.”

She could tell her willingness to talk had thrown him a little. He shook his head again. “Nah, it’s just like I said…you wanting to work with your daddy came outta nowhere,” he reiterated, making Darcy’s skin crawl with his use of the word _daddy_. “Where were you before?”

“I was on the boardwalk,” she said with an easy shrug. “Then I met my sweet Danny boy,” she looked up and smiled at Eddie before continuing, “and realized there’s a lot more money to be made in the family business than in tellin’ fortunes for tourists at twenty bucks a pop.”

From Hayes’ other side, Harvey let out a deep laugh. “Get outta town,” he said. “A fortune teller? Wally you never told us that.”

Hayes shrugged with an easy laugh. “I was tellin’ myself it was a phase.”

“You’re serious?” Phendy asked, still eyeing her skeptically. “You have a crystal ball and everything?”

She laughed her grating laugh and shook her head. “No, no crystal balls. Nobody takes that seriously. I used to do tarot cards and auras sometimes, but my specialty was palm reading.” She knew she could say this without worrying about him looking into it. Before they’d left New York, LaDuke had showed her the deactivated social media profiles and Google results that would appear if anyone tried to check into her story. They’d gone so far as to claim an empty booth on the boardwalk as her former storefront. There was a chance Phendy would be satisfied enough with what he found if he tried searching for her, but Darcy had watched him studying her for almost three months and honestly, she was tired of him thinking she hadn’t noticed.

Without waiting for an invitation, she scooted her chair closer to him, close enough to smell his drugstore cologne. She put her hands on the table. “Come on,” she beckoned softly. “I’ll show you.”

“Naw,” he shook his head. “That’s okay.”

She was sitting close enough to notice the beads of sweat that prickled his brow. “Don’t be scared,” she insisted flirtatiously. “Nothin’s set in stone. And who knows,” she winked at him when he looked up. “Maybe I’ll see something great in your future.” _Like a cell in Sing Sing with a teeny tiny window and a broken toilet_ , she thought, letting the idea warm her as Phendy hesitantly brought his hand up to the tabletop. She took his right hand in hers and carefully turned it palm-side up. “Do me a favor and take a deep breath,” she said. “Try to relax and clear your mind—”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Harvey commented.

Darcy held up a hand. “No interruptions, please,” she grinned at Harvey over her shoulder before she turned back to Phendy. “Now, I do it a little backwards,” she admitted, pleased she finally had a use for the hours spent surfing palm and tarot reading websites. “I start here,” she ran her fingernail over the small line closet to his wrist, between his pinky and ring finger. “This is your sun line,” she informed him. “Also known as your Apollo line. It tells me about your talent,” she looked up and smiled sweetly. “Your success and your popularity.” She squeezed his hand to deepen the lines and showed him with a long, pink acrylic nail what she meant. “See how it’s faint here, but then it gets deeper? That’s because your greatest achievements are waiting for you after overcoming some personal obstacle. But,” she added. “It’s also pretty short in comparison to the other lines.”

“What’s that mean?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“Nothing fatal,” she joked. “Just tells me that you’re workin’ too hard, sweetheart. A short star line says that you’re very committed to your work, but that you don’t always know when to call it a day.” She grinned when he raised his eyes to hers again. “Don’t be afraid to ask my father for a night off every once in a while.”

“Notice how she never said she was a _good_ fortune teller,” Hayes cracked from his place at the table, sending a ripple of laughter through the small group.

“Now _this,_ ” Darcy moved on to the fine line in the center of his palm. “This is your fate line. And see, this is a good sign,” she said encouragingly. “It’s nice and deep.”

“That’s what she said,” Harvey muttered.

Darcy snapped her fingers and shot him an admonishing look. “Zip it, boys, or I’m gonna have to clear the room!”

“Alright, alright,” Hayes held up his hands, good-naturedly. “Sorry Princess. You’ve got the floor.”

“Thank you,” she sat up straighter and turned back to Phendy. She crossed her legs and let his hand drop onto her knee, not missing the way his throat bobbed with a swallow. “So, your fate line is all about destiny,” she continued. “And yours being so prominent, that means you’re on the right path and following it is going to bring you exactly what you’re hoping for.” _Or exactly what_ I’m _hoping for—a twenty-year sentence._ She glanced up to meet his eyes again. “Following so far?”

He nodded with rapt attention.

“Alright, now we get to the ones everyone knows.” She pointed them out as she listed them. “Your heart line, head line, and your life line.” Darcy studied his hand, pretending to consider what his hand was telling her. “I’m seeing a short, straight heart line,” she flicked her eyes up to his. “Not one for commitment, Phendy?” He looked surprised by her assessment, so she moved her shoulder with a modest smile. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right girl.”

“Don’t worry, man,” Eddie chimed in with a smirk she could hear in his voice. “She said the same thing to me.”

“Well you _hadn’t_ met the right girl the first time you came to my booth,” Darcy reminded with a glance at him over her shoulder; she met his eyes just long enough to catch his _I hope you know what you’re doing_ before she focused back on Phendy’s now-clammy palm. “Which brings us to the head line and the life line—these are the two most important,” she added. “So I save ‘em for last.” She drew her nail over the crease that started in the center of his palm and arched toward the space between his thumb and index finger. “This head line is pretty straight,” she lied, unable to remember what her books had said about a braided, curved line. “And that’s gotta be because you’re so skeptical,” she looked up, ensuring he was still paying attention. “Not as trusting as you should be?”

His throat bobbed. “Nah,” he shook his head. “I’m not…I mean, I trust people.”

“Well,” Darcy shrugged again. “If you say so, but this line is full of doubt…” she frowned and squinted at his palm, pretending to read something amid the lines and swirls. “Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Phendy repeated as his eyebrows dipped together. “What’s hmm? You—” he stopped himself and coughed, clearly trying to play off his investment in what she said next. “You don’t see something bad, do you?”

She pursed her lips and forced her expression to stay serious, focused. They could laugh about this later, she reminded herself. When everyone at this table was in jail. “It’s not so much one thing in particular,” she continued, biting her lip for effect. “It’s just that, well, your head line here,” she showed him again with her nail. “It intersects with your life line.”

This was not special. Literally everyone’s head line intersected with their life line.

“And?” Her target prompted.

“Well, if it hadn’t, I’d be able to read plenty more in your life line.” She looked up again. “Life line’s the big one,” she reminded. “You can tell all kinds of things by someone’s life line—what kind of trauma they’ve experienced, how healthy they are, even,” she smiled, “how long they’re gonna live.”

“Really?”

 _Not even a little bit_ , she thought with a nod before she frowned again. “But this head line,” she squinted at his palm again and shook her head. “See how it’s almost getting in the way?” She pointed it out to him. He nodded apprehensively. “There’s really only one way to interpret this, I’m afraid.”

“…How?”

Darcy carefully pushed the sharp acrylic edge of her thumb nail into the soft flesh of Phendy’s palm and held him in place until she felt him squirming in pain. “If that doubt I just mentioned keeps getting in the way of my business with my father?” she pressed harder and Phendy’s jaw tightened, his teeth clamped down so she was the only one who heard him whimper. She leaned in for effect and dropped her voice. “Your life line is going to get a hell of a lot shorter. Understand?” He nodded once and she let go immediately. “Good,” she sat back with a bright smile and turned back in her chair to face the group. “Anyone else want a reading?”

 

_July_

“Please?”

“No thanks,” Steve shook his head as he started putting away the weeks’ worth of groceries he’d just delivered.

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“The prettiest please in the world?”

Steve sighed and closed the cabinet to reveal Becca standing in front of him, her bottom lip jutting out, her hands clasped in prayer. “Bec, the physical attractiveness of the please is not going to change my mind.”

“Come _on_ ,” she begged, tossing back her head dramatically. “It will be fun!”

“It’s not my idea of fun.”

“It’s _free cake!”_ she exclaimed. “How is free cake not fun?”

“When it’s free cake we’re trying on behalf of our partners so they can serve it at their fake wedding where they’re not marrying either of us, surrounded by some of the most dangerous people in the world,” he said, leaning back against the counter to cross his arms over his chest. He raised his eyebrows. “Did I miss anything?”

“No,” she said easily and shook her head. “You got it all. Except that you lacked the appropriate emphasis on the fact that it’s _free cake_ and in agreeing to pick it out for them, we’re playing a vital role in assisting with this covert operation.”

“Why can’t you just go by yourself?” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll watch the kids for you.”

She scrunched her face. “Hi, that’s the saddest possible suggestion you could make.”

Steve groaned. “Becca…”

Becca pulled his hands away from his face. “Steeeeve,” she whined. “Come on. I’m never going to do this for real and it would so pathetic to make me go alone.”

“Why…” he sighed and restarted his question. “How did you even get involved with this?”

“I obviously volunteered.” She dropped his hand and resumed putting away a bag of rice and two boxes of penne. “I had to pick up a form from the station for the kids’ health insurance and Joz and Nowicki were talking about the wedding and all the stupid details they kept forgetting about like colors and all that shit and how they didn’t know when they were going to get the cake taken care of so I offered to go tasting for them.”

He frowned. “This has to be the lowest priority for this operation.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Which is why it probably wouldn’t get done unless someone who _isn’t_ fighting crime on a daily basis takes care of it. And since the world hasn’t really needed saving lately,” she turned on him and batted her lashes. When Steve still didn’t budge, she rolled her eyes. “Come on, you big grump. I promise it’ll be fun. We’ll go to a few shops, try all their cake for free and tell the higher ups what to serve for the big day.”

 

“What the fuck…”

Darcy looked up from the book she’d been trying to read, hoping to fall asleep early and cure the headache she’d developed listening to the Fran-Drescher-esque squeal of the woman Riz had brought to Sunday dinner. “What?”

Without waiting for an answer, she got up and crossed the hotel suite to where Eddie was seated at the desk, staring at his laptop. She glanced at the masthead of the open window and frowned. “Since when do you read _The Daily—”_ she cut herself off as her eyes dropped lower and she focused on the headline.

 **CAP BOUNCES BACK** _  
_ BUT IS HE MOVING TOO FAST?

_Sorry girls, it looks like everyone’s favorite soldier is once again off the market. We reported back in April that he’d been spotted solo, his usual brunette companion nowhere to be found, but it looks like the Captain’s got a new sweetheart these days. Sources report Steve Rogers—better known as Captain America—has been spending an awful lot of time with one woman in particular. And while his last relationship might have been one that he kept under wraps, it looks like Cap’s got no problem showing off these days._

“What in the entire hell?” Darcy asked, looking over Eddie’s shoulder at the screen. “Is that _Becca_?”

“Yeah,” Eddie clipped, his eyes narrowed. “It is.”

Unable to help herself, Darcy kept reading, taking note of the accompanying paparazzi photos that showed Becca and Steve walking together; she could spot Shawn just in front of them, his hands wrapped around the handle of Winnie's stroller, one of Steve holding a door for her like he did for everyone, another of her laughing while he pointed to something ahead. She squinted hard, trying to imagine how anyone could read anything romantic into their body language. 

 _The new couple was spotted last Saturday at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket and most recently at Made in Heaven Bakery in Gowanus where sources report they were sampling wedding cakes. (!!!) "They were_ so _cute,” one of the shop’s onlookers gushed. “They were teasing each other and making each other laugh and_ definitely _talking wedding plans.”_

_That’s right, you heard it here first. Not only has Steve Rogers bounced back from his break-up (is it a break-up if we were never sure if they were together in the first place?) but it looks like he’s headed to the alter with this lucky new woman. And while most seem happy for Cap, some are concerned he’s caught up in a hasty rebound._

_“I think he’s really lonely,” a source close to the hero commented. “It totally makes sense why he’d want some stability and companionship—but that’s not a good enough reason to marry the first girl who comes along.”_

_Check back for updates as the juicy details start rolling in. A spokesperson from Avengers Tower could not immediately be reached for comment, but it’s a safe guess that they’re just as happy as we are that Cap’s found someone to settle down with._

Darcy frowned. “They ended with a preposition,” she commented. “Who proofreads this shit?”

“Really?” Eddie asked, turning around to glare at her. “That’s your problem with this article?”

She blinked and shook her head. “No,” she refocused. “Sorry—it was just the first thing that jumped out at me. Where did…”

“Someone posted it publicly on Becca’s wall,” he answered, his mouth set in a grim line as he clicked out of the article and over to Facebook where Becca had started leaving certain posts public so Eddie could see them without logging in. Mostly pictures of the kids that she’d hide again after a few days, occasionally a status update about a new word Winnie had learned or scores from Shawn’s soccer games. At the top of her feed, a name Darcy didn’t recognize had posted the link with the words, _Uh…something you want to tell us, Bec?_

“There’s comments underneath,” Darcy pointed out. “I want to see.”

Without argument, Eddie clicked it open, revealing a handful of comments echoing the original post’s sentiment before Becca finally said something at the bottom. _Wow,_ she’d written after a series of laughing emojies. _Do me a favor, guys. When I die please put the following on my tombstone: Rebecca Denise Moore – Loving sister, partner, and mother, and once romantically linked to Captain America._ Underneath that she’d written, _Come on, you know if I’m gonna pick out china with anyone from Avengers Tower, it’s going to be Thor._

“She has a point; Thor is definitely her number one Avenger crush,” Darcy commented, hoping to break the tension. When Eddie didn’t laugh, she reached out and closed the laptop.

“Hey,” he whined weakly.

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t _actually_ be worried that any of that is true,” she said, pulling up the ottoman to sit beside him.

“No,” he shook his head and Darcy watched while he sighed and ran his hands over his face. “I just…”

“Miss her and want to go home?” she filled in with a sympathetic smile. He nodded. She pursed her lips in thought. “Did you ever explain to me why you two never officially tied the knot?”

He shrugged. “She’s got a thing about marriage,” he said, sounding like he’d explained this one too many times over the years. “Her parents were always at each other’s throats and…” he shrugged again. “I don’t know, every time I’ve asked, she says things like ‘But things are so good, why screw it up?’ or ‘It’s just a ring and a piece of paper, I don’t need that for us to stay together.’ And it’s not like she doesn’t have a point. We’re clearly pretty good together without getting a judge involved.”

Darcy smiled “How long have you two been together, anyway?”

The corner of his lips lifted. “Since we were seven.”

She gaped. “No way.”

“Way,” he nodded. “She came up to me on the playground one day, punched me in the shoulder and asked me for a quarter. And when I asked her why I had to give her a quarter and she said that she was my girlfriend and that’s what couples do.”

Darcy snickered. “That was her reasoning? You didn’t get anything more than that?”

Eddie shrugged. “I was seven,” he reminded. “I’d never had a girlfriend before—I figured, she seemed to be more knowledgeable on the subject, I should just follow her lead.”

“And that was it?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “Thirty years together because she decided she was your girlfriend?” She laughed when he nodded. “What a woman.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

When Darcy looked up, Eddie’s eyes had dropped to the floor again. She reached across the space between them and squeezed his shoulder. “Halfway done,” she reminded softly.

He looked up and nodded. “Halfway done.”

 

_August_

 

It was a sticky, hot Saturday morning when the knock on the door roused Darcy from her study of the reception hall’s floorplan. She and Eddie exchanged looks over their notes. “You expecting someone?” she asked. He shook his head.

They knocked again.

Darcy got up and slowly and crept to the door. Her relief mingled with confusion when she realized who it was.

“Get dressed, bride-to-be,” Jozelyn cried when she opened the door. Darcy almost laughed. Joz had pulled her hair up into a messy top-knot and donned a pair of yoga pants and midriff-baring tank top. She looked over the top of a pair of giant sunglasses as she offered Darcy a large plastic cup of iced coffee with a green straw. Jozelyn’s fake accent rivaled her own and she found herself momentarily struck dumb as she accepted the drink and welcomed her fellow officer inside.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she finally asked once the door was shut behind them.

“And why are you dressed like a Real Basic Bitch of Jersey City?” Eddie chimed in, looking torn between concern and amusement.

“We have _seriously_ fallen behind on actual wedding planning,” Joz informed them, dropping back into her regular voice. “You don’t have a dress or colors or invitations or anything. You need a maid-of-honor.”

Darcy blinked. “And that’s you?”

“Would you prefer Driscoll?” she asked with another expectant look over the tops of her glasses. “Seriously,” she waved Darcy in the direction of the bedroom. “Get dressed.”

Still frowning, Darcy did as she was told, unconcerned when Jozelyn followed her. “So what?” she asked, digging through the drawer for a clean shirt and shorts. “We’re just going to bang out a bunch of details today?”

“At the very least,” Joz took a sip of her own iced coffee. “I’m not allowed to go back until we both have dresses—LT’s orders.”

Darcy wished very hard that she had been there to watch Driscoll give that order. She couldn’t quite imagine it on her own.

Eddie appeared in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. “Do I have to do anything different today?”

Joz shook her head. “No, but you’ve got an appointment for a tux fitting in September that you’re gonna have to go to with Hayes.”

Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Do I get a best man, at least?”

She nodded. “They’re duking it out right now—it’s between DeSimone and Francis. I think they’re arm-wrestling for it. Whoever wins’ll be at the fitting too so it’s not just you and Hayes.” Joz brightened again and resumed her bubbly character and spot-on south Jersey accent. “I’m Jackie, by the way. Your best friend from high school, and I’m only in town for this weekend so we’re gonna get as much done as possible before I have to go home tomorrow night.”

Darcy swapped her t-shirt for a lightweight button down and pulled on her shorts. “Is this going to be fun, Jackie?” she asked, switching easily back to Lynnie while she pulled up her hair.

Jozelyn grinned. “Omigod, it’s gonna be _so_ fun.”

 

For appearances sake, they had to try a few different dress shops. J-Rod could deny it all she wanted, but Darcy could tell she was actually enjoying playing this character. They decided on colors in the car—dark blue with hints of gold to match the uniformed officers who’d be late to the party. Joz was picky when it came to dresses. She made Darcy try on at least ten at each shop while slipping into five or six dark blue options herself before she declared that they weren’t finding what they were looking for and thanking the employees for all their suggestions.

It wasn’t until they reached what would be their final stop that Darcy realized why she’d been stalling. “Good afternoon ladies,” a familiar voice greeted them moments after they stepped through the door.

Darcy’s head snapped away from the flower girl dress display and had to force herself not to double-take at the sight of Natasha Romanoff striding toward them with a professional smile and a tablet that Darcy recognized as a StarkPad clutched in her hand. She was wearing a wig of dark brown curls that tumbled halfway down her back and a pair of square framed glasses. Her smile remained in place—that same cool, detached professional demeanor that all the other salespeople had offered—while she reached for Darcy’s hand. “I’m Natalie; you must be Lynn,” she said warmly. “Your maid of honor told me all about you when she made the appointment.”

“Oh,” Darcy swallowed back her shock at seeing Natasha and forced herself to resume her act. “All the bad stuff, I’m sure,” she joked as Joz walked past and gave her arm a playful pinch.

“Only the best,” Natasha smiled. “Based on what Jackie’s told us about you,” she motioned for the two of them to follow her toward the back of the shop, “I took the liberty of setting a few options aside for you to start with—no pressure, of course, but everyone needs a jumping off point.”

Darcy’s heart had started pounding as she followed Natasha to the back. What was she doing here? Her stomach clenched at the idea that something had happened that would require her dropping in in person. Something with Steve? Bucky? Someone else in New York? She and Eddie had read the paper every morning, scanning for anything happening at home—just in case. There hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary for the last few months.  

Her mouth running dry, Darcy frowned as she was led to a large fitting room adorned with three piles of white lace, beads, and tulle. “Thank you,” she said haltingly, forcing herself to look interested in the first dress to the right of the door.

“Get fitting, Lynnie,” Joz ordered. “Natalie, she’s going to take forever deciding which one to try on first,” she punctuated her statement with a roll of her eyes. “What do you say you and I find me something in dark blue?”

“Perfect,” Natasha motioned for Darcy to step into the fitting room and pressed the StarkPad into her hands along with a tiny earpiece she produced from the pocket of her pencil skirt. “We’ll be right outside when you’re ready to show off,” she said with a girly, conspiratorial giggle.

With her heart still hammering somewhere up in her throat, Darcy dropped onto the bench in the fitting room and turned on the device. She pushed the earpiece into place and watched as a video screen popped up, inviting her to press play. She wasn’t prepared for the way her heart twisted as Steve’s face appeared, looking mildly uncertain while he focused on something off-camera for a second before he looked back, making her feel like he was looking right at her. To her delight, he’d let his beard return; his hair was a little longer than she remembered it, too. “Hey,” he said with a soft smile. Darcy felt a rush of emotions hit her at once, an avalanche of inconvenient feelings triggered by hearing him say a single word. “I think by the time you get this, I’ll be out of town—” he paused like he was going to tell her where but stopped himself. “Short mission,” he added. “Just a few of us. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Darcy smiled around the lump that had risen in her throat. On the screen, Steve swiped a hand over his face before he continued. “You’re not missing too much here,” he assured her, “I put a new mirror up in the bathroom and fixed the door on the fridge, so it doesn’t slam shut anymore—”

“Oh my God, you’re the best,” she whispered, willing herself to just focus on what he was saying so she wouldn’t fixate on little things like the way his teeth occasionally pressed into his bottom lip. Or the distracting fan of his eyelashes. Or how she could see over his shoulder and the sight of the soft light and deep, leather furniture of their living room made her so homesick she almost couldn’t breathe.

“Oh,” his eyebrows lifted as a thought struck him. “Bucky’s supposed to be back in a few weeks,” the corner of his lips lifted. “Last time I talked to him, he was getting ready to come north after he saw Machu Pichu. He said he’d be back before fall.” His lips pressed together in thought again, as if there was a list of things he was trying to remember to tell her. “Dani thinks we broke up,” he continued without segue-way, fighting a half-smile. “She keeps giving me extra tacos with my order and I think she’s trying to set me up with her granddaughter.” Darcy snorted at the idea of the owner of their favorite food truck trying to push her barely eighteen-year-old granddaughter in Steve’s direction. “And apparently the tabloids think Becca and I are racing to the alter. So that’s what’s going on with me.” He paused and smiled into the camera. “I miss you,” he said, and Darcy’s vision swam unexpectedly. “I just wanted to tell you that. I can’t wait for you to be done kicking all the ass so you can come home.”

Darcy’s smile was short lived as she felt her face crumple and the tears spill down her cheeks. She didn’t want to miss Steve anymore. She wanted to go home. She wanted to let him wrap his arms around her so she could tuck her head under his chin and feel safe again. She wanted this job to be done with so she could get back to the real life she’d paused four months ago.

On the screen, Steve stole a quick glance at his watch. “I’ve gotta go,” he said regretfully before he looked back up into the lens. “I love you, sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.”

The tablet went dark long before Darcy was ready to put it down. She put her hand over her mouth and forced her sob back down into her chest, forcing herself to breathe through her nose, letting a few more tears escape before she caught her breath again.

A knock on the door startled her back to the present and the task at hand. “You doin’ okay, Lynnie?” Joz asked; her voice pulled Darcy to her feet and reminded her how to get herself out of her clothes and into the first dress Natasha had pulled for her.

“I—uh—” her voice cracked inconveniently. “I need some help with the buttons, I think? It’s unlocked.”

The door opened and she came in, followed closely by Natasha, who knelt by the hem of the dress. Darcy watched with interest as she glanced at her watch and appeared to be listening for something. Faintly, she heard the bell above the front door jingle before Natasha looked up and smiled. “You look beautiful,” she said softly.

“Thanks,” Darcy said, unsure which of the characters in Nat’s repertoire she was talking to.

“If you want some variety, we can play with some different details for the top," she motioned to the white satin bodice that tied up behind her neck in a halter she found almost flattering. "But I wouldn't go any closer to the leg with the skirt. You need space for your thigh-holster,” she said abruptly, answering Darcy’s unspoken question. “Anything longer and you’re going to trip on it,” she added, examining the back before she bit her lip in a frown. “I wouldn’t go any shorter unless you really want to,” she continued. “But an inch from the floor gives you plenty of space for a back-up weapon on your ankle.” When she looked up into the confused expressions of her companions, Natasha smiled patiently. “My co-worker—who thinks I’m here from another store—just went for a Jamba Juice,” she explained. “I’ve got about fifteen minutes to make sure you can move in this dress while still being armed enough to keep yourself safe on the big day. What are you carrying?”

“A Glock 19,” Darcy answered automatically, grateful to be back on solid ground in a conversation she could follow. “I hadn’t thought about an ankle holster,” she admitted with a frown. “I’m not sure it wouldn’t show through,” she said, glancing down at the swishing satin and tulle of the skirt.

“Hang on.” With Darcy’s buttons finished, Joz dipped out of the room for a moment and returned with her large handbag. From the depths, she removed her own ankle holster and off-duty service weapon. “See for yourself.” She offered them both to Darcy, who accepted with a slow smile before she passed them to Natasha who happily fit them to her leg. Jozelyn shrugged modestly. “See? Every bride needs a maid of honor.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit:
> 
> Becca and Steve's paparrazzi love affair is all thanks to the amazing Amerna.  
> Becca and Eddie's origin story is ripped directly from an interview I saw with Anthony Mackie talking about how he met his wife in grade school.
> 
> It wasn't my best work, more a means to an end. But I'd still love to know what you thought and if you're still with me on this very weird ride. <3 <3 <3


	5. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> September

 

_The happiest moment of my wedding was realizing that planning my wedding was over.  
-Wedding Joke #73_

_September_

 

“Let’s go over what we know so far,” Driscoll said gruffly, running a hand over his salt and pepper stubble. “I don’t want to be taken off guard by anything.”

Darcy nodded and shared a glance with Eddie before she took a breath and addressed her squad mates. “Ceremony’s at two,” she said, aiming Nowicki’s laser pointer at the projected invitation. “Guests should start arriving by one-thirty at the latest.”

“All goes according to plan, half our targets will already be in custody before noon,” Eddie continued. “Assuming Baptiste is _actually_ going to be there, Hayes and I will be meeting with him at twelve-thirty to arrange the official deal. We’ve got a pound of pure that the DEA is grabbing us from evidence—according to them it’s the purest they’ve ever seen. They seized it coming in from North Korea a few months back.”

From her perch on the radiator beneath the window, Jozelyn raised her hand. “What do you mean, ‘assuming Baptiste is actually going to be there’?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “He hasn’t sent his RSVP back yet.”

The room groaned in solidarity. “Fucking rude,” Carlton from Vice muttered.

“Right?” Joz agreed.

“I know,” Darcy heard herself gripe before she realized it. “I have caterers to pay; I need a firm number!”

“Technically, Lewis,” Driscoll broke in, barely suppressing a smile. “ _You_ do not have caterers to pay.”

Her cheeks tinged and she nodded. “Fair enough. It’s still rude.”

“Speaking of,” DeSimone raised his hand and spoke up. “What’s the food situation?”

“Crab cakes or pork roast,” Eddie answered without hesitation.

His best man frowned. “I thought you were doing chicken and waffles?”

Darcy shook her head. “Too expensive,” she admitted to another chorus of discontent. She pointed at their lieutenant and sergeant. “Talk to them; they’re the ones who made us change it.”

“Come on, LT,” Mack groused. “Lighten up.”

“It’s a free meal and an open bar,” Nowicki spoke up, silencing the squad like an angry mother. “You’ll eat what you’re given and that’s the end of it.”

“Hey, what’s the first dance?” Francis asked, a grin dimpling his left cheek. “Do you guys have a song?”

The bride and groom glared at one another. “We’re still debating,” Eddie said tightly.

“We’re not debating,” Darcy insisted. “It’s ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, by Queen.”

“It is _not,”_ Eddie argued back immediately. “How is that a first dance?”

“It’s more a first dance than ‘You Can Be My Bitch’ by Master P,” she shot back. “Which is, in case you forgot, the _only_ suggestion you’ve come up with.”

“My money was on something by Salt-n-Pepa,” Joz said with a shrug and a half-smile stuck at the corner of her mouth.

Darcy raised an eyebrow and looked back at her partner who, to her surprise, had started to smile. “We do fucking _slay ‘_ Push It’ on karaoke night,” she reminded.

Eddie snickered and shook his head. “Anyway, that’s not the song you guys need to be listening for,” he said, switching back to business. “But we _are_ going to be triggering go-time with the music. Lewis is going to make an announcement that she wants to play a game, the DJ’s going to play—” he glanced over at Darcy.

“‘One Way or Another’, by Blondie,” she supplied with a smile.

“Nice,” Nowicki nodded in approval.

“And on her signal,” Eddie continued, “we bust.”

Darcy looked at her watch. “On that note, we should probably get out of here. I don’t know how long it’s supposed to take to get a marriage license, but we’ve gotta be cutting it pretty close.”

Their unit packed up the make-shift briefing room and returned folding chairs to the wall from which they’d borrowed them. Francis offered a fist bump as he led them out of the Monmouth county courthouse conference room. “Thanks for the field trip, guys.”

“Anytime,” Eddie said, swatting a few of the detectives on the shoulders as they passed.

Joz stopped and offered Darcy a quick and surprising hug. “You call me if you need anything, okay?” she said before letting go. “Dees and I are the only two who are allowed back before the wedding.”

Darcy nodded and gave her a tight smile. “We’ll be okay,” she said for the millionth time. “It’s all gonna be over before we know it.”

Driscoll assessed them as he and Nowicki brought up the rear of the chain of cops making their way back into the hallway. “You two seem to be holding up okay,” he said evenly. “Everything good with Wasylyshyn and LaDuke?”

Eddie nodded. “They’ve got ninety percent of the warrants in place,” he confirmed. “It’s all just starting to look like we’re sitting on go.”

“Stay sharp,” Nowicki chimed in. “You’re almost out of the woods—don’t start getting comfortable now.”

Darcy offered another tight smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Sarge.”

They shook hands and went their separate ways, each leaving via different exits and at carefully selected and unevenly spaced times.

Eddie and Darcy waited for another twenty minutes before Danny and Lynnie walked down the courthouse steps, hand in hand, grinning like idiots who’d just been granted a marriage license.

 

***

 

Being in Darcy’s precinct without her felt all kinds of wrong. Despite that he actually _needed_ to be there that day. And it wasn’t like he spent a whole lot of time there when she _was_ in town. But still.

Maybe it was police stations in general, he considered. For someone who’d spent so much of his life actively breaking laws and disregarding society’s rules for conduct, it wasn’t the most welcoming place. Plus, the sight of so many people dressed the same and with similar haircuts, surrounded by a lingering, undefined tension and the scent of stale coffee gave him flashbacks to the military and set his teeth on edge.

Steve shifted uncomfortably while he waited for word that he was free to go. He didn’t recognize the beat cop currently bent over his computer, squinting between the screen and the hastily handwritten field incident report. He glanced around again. In fact, he realized, he didn’t recognize a lot of the cops on this floor. Since Darcy had moved upstairs to homicide so many years ago, he’d given up trying to commit anyone else’s names to memory until he was sure he’d have to see or speak to them again.

“Rogers,” the unexpected and familiar voice of Nick Driscoll pulled Steve’s attention upward, landing where the lieutenant stood, leaning in the door of the bullpen. He looked confused as he beckoned him over. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Steve coughed and tried to shrug into a look of nonchalance. “I, uh,” he glanced over to where he’d been leaning against an empty desk, close enough to still loom over the reason for his visit today.  “I was a witness to a little domestic dispute on the subway,” he said, trying that shrug again.

Driscoll looked behind him with a thick, raised eyebrow. “That guy break his own nose?” he asked taking in the sight of the thick-necked twenty-something who’d made the mistake of shoving his girlfriend in plain sight of Steve on the subway. To Steve’s own credit, he’d waited a whole thirty seconds to see if anyone else was going to do anything. But when the man in question had grabbed her again, Steve had caught sight of the bruises on the young woman’s arms and the way she winced any time he moved too quickly.

“Something like that,” Steve answered Driscoll’s question. “It was the damnedest thing.”

Driscoll’s eyes shifted from the man holding an ice pack to his broken, bleeding nose and the woman he’d just passed in the hallway, speaking in hushed tons with a social worker. He shook his head. “Crazy how that shit happens.”

Steve nodded. “Crazy. “

“Listen,” Driscoll said, motioning him to follow as he began walking back toward the elevator. “This’ll only take a minute,” he assured him when Steve looked back to see if it was okay that he abandoned his post for a moment. “I—uh—” he paused and started over. “What are you doing on the 12th?”

Steve frowned. “October 12th?” Driscoll nodded. “Nothing that I know of,” he answered honestly. Because that sounded better than _Trying to think about anything other than the fact that that’s the day you have my girlfriend marrying someone else in the hopes of drawing out a sociopathic drug lord who could kill the entire wedding party six ways from Sunday if he has any suspicion that it’s a set-up._

Driscoll nodded again. “You wanna come to New Jersey?”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Any particular reason, sir? Or just trying to encourage me to visit some more garden spots? “

The lieutenants mouth twitched into a quick smile. “I thought I’d see if you wouldn’t mind standing in as back-up,” he said before he added, “But the gardens are nice, too.”

“Back-up?” Steve heard himself repeat with skepticism. “New York and New Jersey PD and the DEA not enough security for you? “

Driscoll shrugged. “It’s not every one of my detective’s that’s got an honest-to-Christ superhero waiting for them at home, Rogers,” he explained. “We shouldn’t need you—in fact, I’m counting on you being really bored the whole time—but just in case.” He moved his broad shoulder again. “Never hurts to have a little extra muscle on deck.”

Steve considered it for longer than he really needed to. Of course, he wanted to be there. Of course, he wanted to make sure that nothing happened to Darcy while they tried to pull off this incredibly risky maneuver. Of course, he’d never forgive himself if something happened to her and he wasn’t there to stop it. But he didn’t want to admit all that. Especially not to someone who might let it slip back to Darcy. “Yeah,” he said finally, priding himself on sounding so casual. “I can do that. But,” he added quickly before Driscoll could press the button that would take him upstairs. “You can’t tell her I’m there.” Driscoll’s eyebrows rose again. “I’m serious,” Steve added. “I don’t want her thinking I’m there checking up on her or waiting for her to fuck up so I can swoop in and save her.”

Another nod. “That’s fair,” he said easily. “Like I said, I don’t plan on having too much for you to do,” he added. “But there’s always a place in the van for someone who can pull a helicopter out of the sky.”

Steve rolled his eyes, wondering—not for the first time—what kinds of things Darcy told her squad when they went out for drinks. “That was just the one time.”

Driscoll chuckled and pressed his button to head upstairs. “I’ll get you the details, Rogers,” he said when the doors opened. “Well be in touch.”

Steve nodded and waited until the doors closed again before he turned and made his way back down the hall to finish giving his statement.

 

***

 

Darcy blinked and did her best to look more on the delighted rather than horrified side of surprised. “You wanna what, now?”

Riz and Delmar exchanged a look as Lauren—the most recent in Riz’s line of conquests who all looked the same—let out a high-pitched giggle. “A party!” she exclaimed. “A kinda…y’know, co-bachelor and bachelorette party to celebrate before the big day.”

Darcy felt Eddie’s hand tighten on her leg in the moment before she looked back at him. “Uh, yeah,” she forced a laugh to mirror Lauren’s. “Yeah, that’d be fun, I guess?”

“When are you thinking?” Eddie asked and threw an arm around Darcy’s shoulders and pulled her back to lean against him. “Next weekend or something?”

“Nah,” Delmar shook his head, “fuck that. We got it all planned out—we’re going now.” He glanced in the direction of the coat room. “Get your shit.”

Darcy’s stomach turned unpleasantly. “Guys,” she laughed lightly, wondering if Hayes was going to break in and reroute their plans. As much as she hated to admit it, his desire to reduce his own prison sentence had made their time undercover considerably easier. He was surprisingly good about playing his role and steering conversations and plans away from suspicion and this would have been just the right moment to suggest something else. Something they’d have time to prepare for. Something that didn’t feel like such a blindside. But Hayes was not in the room with them. He’d stepped into the lobby of the restaurant a minute earlier to take a phone call. “That’s real sweet, but I’m not really dressed for a party.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Lauren assured them as she reached her arm out of sight, under the table before she returned with two small gift bags. “It’s nothin’ fancy,” she promised. “And tacky t-shirts are kinda mandatory—especially for the guests of honor.” Before Darcy could process what was happening and how she was supposed to get them out of this, Lauren had stood and seized her hand. “C’mon, I need a pee anyway, I’ll keep you company while you change.”

Her stomach sank as she was pulled to her feet and she understood swiftly why she had an escort. _To see if I’m wearing a wire._ She tried to share this realization with Eddie as she leaned down and pressed her lips to his. “Be right back,” she said, unsure if he took anything from the way she dug her nails into the tops of his shoulders before she let him go. She wasn’t sure what all she was even trying to convey other than maybe a warning to stay on guard.

Lauren had no issues with dropping down onto the toilet as soon as the door to the single-occupant bathroom was closed and locked. With the confidence that she could at least pass _this_ test without issue, Darcy shrugged her shoulders and pulled her top over her head. She didn’t miss the way Lauren’s blonde hair whipped into her face when her eyes shot up to watch her do it. She dug into the gift bag and found a skimpy, screen-printed tank top that read _Bride-to-Be_ in rhinestones; she pulled it on without preamble and studied herself in the mirror.

It was so thin and cut in a way that really brought out the fact that she was just barely wearing it over a black lace bra. Vaguely, as she fluffed her hair and reapplied some lipstick, she remembered the outfits she used to have to wear when she was undercover in vice and couldn’t help but suppress a smile as she decided this wasn’t quite so bad.

“Tacky as shit, isn’t it?” Lauren asked as she stood and flushed. She washed her hands before she reached out and adjusted one of Darcy’s bra straps.

“The tackiest,” Darcy declared, pretending to admire herself. “But we're only doin’ this once,” she said and offered Lauren a grin. “Might as well enjoy it, right?”

They almost ran squarely into Hayes on their way out of the bathroom. Darcy noticed his pinched features immediately and offered him a bright smile. “Hey Dad.”

“Hey, Princess,” he echoed before he noticed her costume change. “Where’d you get that?”

“She needs it for her Bachelorette party, Boss-man,” Lauren said in her irritating sing-song voice. “You’re still comin’ right?”

“Course I am,” Hayes said immediately. “Gimme a minute with the blushing bride,” he said and took Darcy by the arm. “We gotta figure something out about these fucking favors—I just got off the phone with the guy.”

Lauren shrugged and offered a sympathetic smile before she left them alone in the hallway. Darcy frowned and turned to Hayes. “What’s wrong with the favors, Dad?” she asked with a lift of her eyebrows.

He shuffled. “The—uh—the people I was talking to,” he said, haltingly, clearly trying to find a way to tell her something specific without the ability to speak freely. “They’re worried your order isn’t…uh…verified.”

Her frown deepened. “That sounds like a problem.”

“It might be,” he admitted. “They’re workin’ on it right now,” he continued. “Tonight, actually,” he added. “But you might have to—uh—” he paused and shook his head before he changed his mind and started again. “Listen, honey, I know you had your heart set on your original idea, but I think it’s probably a good idea if you just go along and take what they give you.”

She forced her face to remain neutral for a second before she nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Especially since you sent back all those samples last time they offered,” he added and Darcy nodded again, making sure he knew they were on the same page.

Twice over the summer she’d been offered first choice of some freshly chopped lines of cocaine and twice she’d talked her way out of doing it. Both times she’d wondered if she’d made the right choice, both times she suspected she hadn’t, even though it would have meant sacrificing any intel they’d collected that night.

“You got it,” she said with a nod and her decision made for her. “Little Miss Compliance from here on out.”

Hayes gave her cheek a pat. “Just be careful, Princess,” he said, and Darcy couldn’t help but think that he really meant it.

That worried her more than anything else she’d just agreed to.

 

***

 

She’d never dreaded a meeting more than the one she and Eddie had to attend the next morning. Her head pounded furiously in her ears and she still wasn’t seeing clearly; she tried to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth as she leaned against her partner at the beachside picnic table.

Despite the craggy gray clouds and the sharper bite of the wind coming off the ocean, she was happy for a change from the back room of the bodega.

“Let’s hear it,” Wasylyshyn started while he dropped a thick leather portfolio on the table and took a heavy seat himself. “What’d you take?”

Darcy, who’d been preparing herself for a verbal lashing and possibly a firing, blinked in surprise. “Uh…”

LaDuke dropped down next as Wasylyshyn’s weary eyes shot between the two of them. “You two look like microwaved shit— _guilty_ microwaved shit,” he added. “So, I’m gonna go ahead and guess you had to go a little further than you wanted to keep your cover last night.” He flicked his gaze between them again. “So out with it,” he said, like an irritated principal. “How bad was it?”

Darcy and Eddie shared a look before she cleared her throat. “It wasn’t like, gun to our heads or anything,” she said, her voice still hoarse from all the shouting she’d done over the music the night before. “But they were definitely getting suspicious.” She swallowed painfully. “I think we’re okay now, though.”

“We fuckin’ better be,” Eddie grumbled. He gave her arm a reassuring rub before he took his from around her shoulders and folded his hands in front of us. “Two lines each in the car on the way to this party and they hit her with something about a half hour before we left.”

“MDMA,” she muttered, not wanting to remember the women she’d stood with in line for the bathroom. The ones who had all dutifully stuck out their tongues and let Kane—one of Hayes’ fringe associates—spritz something into their mouths. “Mostly.” The woman next to her—not Lauren, one of the sex workers she recognized from their engagement party months ago—had been smiling while she’d grabbed hold of Darcy’s face and popped her mouth open with firm pressure on the hinge of her jaw. _Open wide_ , she’d giggled. _This stuff is amaaazing._

And, though she didn’t want to admit it, it had been amazing. Almost immediately she’d felt soft and buoyant; lighter than she’d ever felt before and like someone had set her ablaze with a fire that burned warm and tingling beneath her skin. She remembered the lights sparkling, the music practically floating in front of her wide, disbelieving eyes, and the strong suspicion that if she just let go a little more, she’d float right out of her shoes.

Wasylyshyn raised his bushy eyebrows. “Mostly?”

“I’ve never done Molly before,” she reminded. “It _felt_ like ecstasy, but it lasted…” she shook her head. “It lasted way too long. It had to be some kind of cocktail.”

It was some kind of miracle that Eddie had caught her as she’d reached the bottom stair, coming down from the bathroom. She’d thrown her arms around his neck and did her best to force her swirling, dancing thoughts on her partner. _Take me home_? She’d yelled the words against his ear, grateful when she felt his arms tighten around her and pull her off the last step, away from the group of women trooping down behind her.

 _Ya welcome, Danny_ , one of them had called with a loud cackle. _She’s gonna be_ real _fun the rest of the night._

Darcy sighed and ran her hands over her face. She was fairly certain that Eddie’s idea of _real fun_ did not involve carrying her out of the club over his shoulder when her legs decided to stop working; or dropping her, fully clothed, into their hotel shower and turning on the cold water in an attempt to sober her up. It certainly hadn’t felt real fun for him to be sitting on the floor beside the shower, holding her hand while she rambled for what felt like hours about anything that came to mind, humoring her concern that if she stopped talking long enough to fall asleep, she might never wake up.

Real fun.

“So, what now?”

LaDuke and Wasylyshyn exchanged a glance. “What now?” LaDuke repeated.

“Through the tangle, towards the ridge,” Wasylyshyn said as if that was an adage they were supposed to understand. “You kept your cover,” he reminded. “You’re not dead and you didn’t blow the operation.” He shrugged. “Nothing else _to_ do except keep your heads down and finish the job. And since anything that you might have seen or heard last night is tainted, there’s no reason to talk about it.” He flipped open the folio on the table before he added. “Sorry if you were hoping I’d fire you.”

Darcy and Eddie’s wild night aside, they still had plenty to discuss. Four more warrants had come through including—to Darcy’s delight—one for Phendy, and the official day-of detail was falling into place.

Instructions were clear to everyone invited—they would be doing business, but only between eleven and one. They were to send a car and their mules to pick up. Everyone who’d RSVP’d had a set time. Hayes had laid it on pretty thick at the last meeting that no one was going to be working during the wedding or the reception—everyone was in agreement that this would all be best taken care of ahead of time.

This part of the operation seemed pretty cut-and-dry. A car would show up for the deal, the DEA would apprehend and impound the vehicle, carting those in question off to a holding cell before they could contact their superiors. The same thing would happen when the next car showed up fifteen minutes later and continue until they were out of handcuffs and small-timers.

“You gonna have that signal jammer figured out by D-Day?” LaDuke asked Eddie, who nodded readily.

“It’s nothing they haven’t rigged up before,” he said of the NYPD who were familiar with his knack for cobbling together surveillance tech for boosted performance. “Hang on,” he said, getting up from the table. “I’ve got the mock-up in the trunk.”

LaDuke followed, leaving Darcy alone with Wasylyshyn. He was still scribbling notes on his yellow legal pad for a few long moments before he sighed but didn’t look up. “What?”

She frowned. “What, what?”

“You’re staring at me like you want to ask me something,” he informed her before he finally raised his eyes. “What is it?”

The creases in her forehead deepened. “I think I might still be extra paranoid from last night—”

“You are,” he assured her.

“But I think you were cooler than I expected about what happened.”

He shrugged. “Shit happens. It’s nowhere near the worst I’ve seen.”

“Still…” she folded her arms on the table and squinted at him. “You could have reamed me out a little,” she reminded. “If you were looking for an opportunity. I mean, you don’t even like me.”

“What makes you say that?”

She scoffed. “You, Wasylyshyn. You make me say that. You’ve been nothing but a dick to me since the day we met.”

Wasylyshyn frowned and turned over her words in his mind. “Tell me something,” he said as he closed the folio between them. “When I gave you shit about that stumble over Hendricks—how’d you feel?”

“Pissed off,” she said bluntly. “I thought I made that pretty clear.”

He nodded. “You did. But have you flubbed any other introductions since?” he raised his thick eyebrows again. “Slipped up even a little bit?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “No, I haven’t.”

He shrugged. “Well there ya go,” he said. “I told you—you weren’t going to like me, but I was going to do my best to keep you alive.”

She looked at him steadily for a long moment before she nodded. “I guess you did,” she admitted. “But I hope you’re not looking for me to get emotional and sing ‘To Sir, With Love’ to you when this is all over.”

Wasylyshyn’s bark of a laugh surprised her. “No,” he assured her. “Don’t worry. I’ll have slithered back into my swamp before you even have time to miss me.”

She suppressed a smile at the picture his words conjured. “You’re at least going to stay for the reception though, right?”

He shook his head. “Maybe a drink,” he said, reaching for his notes again. “But that’s it. I don’t dance.”

Darcy smothered back another grin before they got back to work.

 

***

 

She wasn’t sure what woke her first—the gentle shaking of her shoulder or the irritating jingle of her cell phone. Darcy frowned deeply and rolled over in the stiff sheets of the suite’s pullout sofa. “What?” she groaned before she peeled her eyes open.

Eddie sat on the edge of the bed and handed her the phone. He reached out and turned on the light beside the bed. “It’s a Texas number,” he said quietly.

Darcy’s drowsiness disappeared in an instant. She sat up straight and wet her lips before she cleared her throat and accepted the call, hoping her accent was convincing enough first thing in the morning. “Hello? This is Lynnie.”

“Miss Hayes,” his voice was rough, like it was coming through smoke and gravel to reach her and send a chill down her back. “This is Marshall Baptiste.”

Darcy closed her eyes and sucked in a deep, steadying breath through her nose. “Oh my God, Mr. Baptiste,” she said with as much excitement as she could muster. “It’s so nice to hear from you.”

“You as well,” he said politely. There was a hint of an accent she couldn’t quite place…almost French. Cajun, maybe? “I apologize I haven’t been in touch earlier,” he continued. “I just wanted to be certain before I let you know.”

She blinked. “Let me know?”

“That I’ll be there on the 12th, of course,” he said with a little laugh that only chilled her further. “Thank you for the invitation; I’m very much looking forward to it.”

Everything in her clenched in dread as she forced a smile he could hear through the phone. “We are too,” she said cheerfully. “Really looking forward to meeting you in person.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a director whose favorite thing to say after a difficult scene or rehearsal was, "Through the tangle, towards the ridge." It was her way of resetting our sights on our goal and giving us a second to acknowledge the tangle we'd just made it through. As she herself is now on the other side of the proverbial ridge, swirling in the heavens, I wanted to pay a little homage to her here. 
> 
> Thanks for everything, Cath. We loved you. 
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
> Let me know what you think, friends. We're almost done!


	6. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we are, only the epilogue left. As always, I would love very much to know what you think and so appreciate you spending time with me and Detective Lewis. <3 <3 <3

 

Chapter Five

 

_I’m not sure that a handful of Xanax counts as ‘something blue.’_

**October 12 th **

**09:00AM**

 

They didn’t sleep the night before. They tried. They took turns telling each other that they _should_ get some sleep. But in between episodes of _Property Brothers_ and _Paranormal Caught on Tape,_ Darcy was pretty sure they each averaged about ninety separate minutes of actual rest.

She could tell she’d looked better with look Joz shot her when she arrived. “Brunch time, bride-to-be,” she said with a bright, cheerful smile. “All ready for the big day?”

Darcy blinked blearily and gratefully accepted the iced coffee her maid of honor had procured for her. “Born ready,” she muttered, surprised when Joz pushed past her into the hotel suite.

“Just wanted to give the groom some love too,” Joz insisted when Darcy shot her a raised brow and went to close the door. “It’s his big day as well,” she said, crossing the room to where Eddie was seated at the desk they’d been sharing for the last six months.

Darcy watched with interest as Joz came up behind Eddie and put her arms around his shoulders. She gave him a quick hug and set a piece of paper on the desk in front of him. From where she stood, she could see crayon scribbles and couldn’t help herself from peering over his shoulder when she crossed to the other room for her purse. She stopped behind him as her heart gave an unexpected twist when she realized Joz had delivered a message from home. Winnie had decorated with erratic scribbles of green and blue all around Shawn’s simple message in the center of the page:

_Be safe Daddy. We love you._

She took a deep breath and grabbed her purse, giving Eddie a minute before she squeezed his shoulder and met his eyes in the mirror. “See ya at the alter.”

He smiled tightly and tipped his head to press his cheek to the top of her hand. “See ya.”

 

**09:45AM**

 

Driscoll looked up from the corned beef hash he was about to shovel into his mouth. “Eat up, you two,” he ordered, motioning to Darcy and Jozelyn’s untouched plates. “You’re not going to want to do this on an empty stomach.”

Obediently, Darcy took a small bite of her wheat toast. “Have you heard from Hayes yet?”

The lieutenant checked his phone and shook his head. “Not since LaDuke handed off the product for Baptiste,” he reminded. “Just relax. You two go get your hair done, act like this is the happiest day of your life. It’s all going to be fine.”

Darcy chewed her lip. “When do we find out how the meeting goes?”

“Soon as I get a text, I’ll tell you,” he promised easily.

Joz looked at the watch on her slim wrist and pushed a forkful of hash browns across her plate. “Where are Hayes and Kimball going to be for the first roundup?”

“Away,” Driscoll answered. “DeSimone’s got it covered—some whiskey bar for lunch, I think?”

“That’s where they’re meeting Baptiste?” Rodriguez asked as she reached for the hot sauce.

“Yeah,” Driscoll said, making Darcy’s stomach clench again. “Probably talk business in the restaurant and make it official in the parking lot. LaDuke’ll be there for back-up,” he added before she could ask. “Just in case.”

There was another tense moment of silence, interrupted by the scrape of silverware against dishes and Driscoll’s loud chewing before Darcy cleared her throat. “Can we just go over it one more time?”

He sighed, but nodded and pushed his plate to the side to flip over his paper placemat. He grabbed a blue crayon from the container in the condiment caddy and drew a quick blueprint of their venue—a sprawling estate indicative of much more money than Darcy or Eddie would ever see in a lifetime and courtesy of a property seizure from a recent white-collar arrest. “DEA is stationed here,” he drew an X at the gated entrance. “Where they’ll collect phones and firearms.”

“That’s standard practice,” Joz assured her quietly. “Especially for a big pick-up like this. No one’s going to think anything of it.”

Darcy nodded while Driscoll continued, drawing an arrow from the front gate around to the service entrance at the back of the house. “UCs are going to be back here. They’re going to show the product, get the money, DEA will make the arrests.”

“Still doing one car at a time?” Darcy asked, even though she knew this part of the plan backwards.

“Only way to do it,” Driscoll answered, not breaking stride with his rundown. He drew a small rectangle outside the perimeter of the property and scribbled _DEA_ inside. “Additional agents are going to be waiting here to transport our lucky contestants to county.” He drew two more boxes Darcy had to guess were supposed to be vehicles. “Three waiting all together. Our guys will drive the cars out of the way so the next group doesn’t get suspicious. All in,” he glanced at his watch, “oughtta be done in about an hour. 

 

**11:04AM**

 

It was an hour and fourteen minutes, actually, from the time phase one was supposed to go down before her phone vibrated in her lap at the salon. The stylist had just sunk her long nails into Darcy’s hair when she looked down, her heart in her throat. 

 _Twenty-one down,_ the text from Wasylyshyn read. _Nineteen to go._  

“Head up, sweetie,” her stylist—a beautiful woman with full lips, perfect winged eyeliner, and an Adam’s apple—commanded, unaware of the way her client had nearly been knocked over with her relief. She frowned as she peered down at the crown of her head. “No offense, babe,” she said, combing those long, teal talons through her hair. “But what’s going on with this color? Are we growing it out? Are we bored with the blonde? What’s happening?”

“Oh,” Darcy shook her head and shrugged, willing herself to calm down and not be too outwardly excited. “I, uh,” from the corner of her eye, she saw Joz’s phone light up a minute before her maid of honor clenched her jaw to stifle a sound of celebration. “Does it look that bad?”

“Bad?” the stylist repeated skeptically. “No…not _bad_. But girl, your roots is longer than the movie and I don’t know that I can let you walk down the aisle like that.”

Darcy snorted a laugh and shrugged again. “Do what you gotta do,” she decided, remembering the last thing Steve had said to her when she’d left. _I love you…but I hate the blonde._ Her stomach flipped unexpectedly at the memory. She was going to get to see Steve tonight.

In all the stress and the paranoia and the anxiety, she’d forgotten the best part of this day was waiting for her at the end of it. They were going to go home. Get their lives back. Be themselves again.

No, it wasn’t that she’d forgotten. It was that she’d made herself not think about it—forced herself to focus on every little nerve-wracking detail—to blur out the promise of the prize at the end. None of them could afford to be distracted by the lure of being done.

The woman behind her pointed to the dark roots at her crown. “Is this the natural?” she asked. When Darcy nodded, she clucked her tongue. “It’s pretty,” she declared, “but I can’t get you back to that all over in the time we have.” She finger-combed the messy curls again. “But I _can_ tone this brassy business down a bit,” she decided thoughtfully, “if you’re okay with a little more brown, a little less…” her lips twisted in consideration of her words, “boardwalk?”

Darcy laughed again. “A little less boardwalk sounds perfect.”

 

**01:17PM**

 

 _Guests arriving,_ Darcy’s phone informed her while she slid her holster up her thigh in the bridal suite.

She grabbed it from the table and fired back a response to Wasylyshyn. _What happened at lunch?_ she demanded. _Everyone okay?_

It was an agonizingly long minute before her phone buzzed again. _Ran over time,_ he responded. _But all good._

She stared at her phone and sank down into the chair. Wasylyshyn was not the kind to go into details about what had gone right or wrong. Not over a text, at least, and definitely not in the middle of an operation. But after six months, she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t call anything less than a perfect hand-off _all good._

It should have settled her nerves more, but it didn’t. Two-thirds of a successful operation was not enough. In order for all of this to have been worth it, they needed half the guests who were arriving downstairs to arrest the other half at exactly the right time and do their best to make sure no one was shot in the process. Darcy had a terrible suspicion she wasn’t going to be able to take a whole breath until she was home again.

The feeling of Jozelyn’s hands on her shoulders startled her and pulled her head up from where she’d dropped it into her hands. “Couple things,” she said seriously as she grabbed the other chair and sat down in front of Darcy. “First: deep breath.”

Darcy nodded and forced herself to inhale deeply through her nose and exhale slowly through her mouth. At Joz’s insistence, she did it again, but didn’t feel much better.

“Second,” she continued, once she was satisfied that Darcy wasn’t about to hyperventilate. “Kahlila Green. Doyle Bonds. Charlie Washington.”

Darcy reached out and clasped her unsteady hands with Jozelyn’s. “Kahlila Green. Doyle Bonds. Charlie Washington,” she repeated.

“All dead because of those people downstairs, right?”

“Right.”

“So, all that’s left to do is for us to put a stake in their fuckin’ hearts today and then we get to eat cake.”

Despite her twisted stomach, Darcy cracked a smile and nodded when Joz squeezed her hands. “Practically in the bag,” she said.

“Oh, and third thing?” Joz said as she got to her feet. “Your hair looks _so_ much better now.”

At that, Darcy did finally laugh and turned to look at herself in the mirror. It was true—she did look considerably better than she had that morning with hair that was toned down in color and highlights that had been softened to look a little closer to intentional. She almost looked like herself again.

Jozelyn adjusted one of Darcy’s curls and secured one of her bobby pins tighter before she glanced at the clock. “Dress time,” she said grimly before she spared a glance down at the loaded gun strapped to her thigh and smiled. “Since you already put your garter on.”

 

**02:31PM**

 

“Throughout this ceremony, Lynette and Daniel have vowed, in our presence, to be loyal and loving towards each other,” Detective Ortiz from Narcotics addressed the wedding guests with a broad smile. “They have formalized the existence of the bond between them with words spoken and with the giving and receiving of rings.” Darcy glanced down at the foreign gold bands they both wore—selected only a few days earlier from another box without any real consideration. “Therefore, it is my pleasure to now pronounce them husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride!

They kissed. The crowd cheered. Darcy took Eddie’s hand and turned to face the room, scanning for faces to match the outstanding arrest warrants. Baptiste was there, on the bride’s side, right behind Hayes. To her relief, he looked relaxed, happy. He clapped Hayes on the shoulder, appearing to offer congratulations as the music started up again and they were able to retreat back down the aisle.

 

**04:07PM**

 

The cuticles of Darcy’s thumbs were on the verge of bleeding for all the chewing and picking at them she was doing. “How long are we supposed to wait?” she asked, glancing from Eddie to DeSimone to LaDuke and back again. “I mean, at what point do we say ‘fuck it’ and get who we can get?”

From the other side of the limo, Rodriguez checked her phone. “Look, we’re supposed to be doing pictures until five,” she reminded. “By the time we roll up, that open bar should have done its job and everyone’s guard will be down. We’ll reassess then.”

LaDuke nodded. “It’s only two small-timers we’re missing,” he added. “Worst comes to worst it’s a bust of thirty-eight instead of forty.”

 

**06:22PM**

 

Eddie’s hand in hers was the only thing keeping her centered as they danced together, reminding her they were still playing a part, forcing her to keep her eyes on him and not scan the room for their two missing perps.

“This song is bullshit,” he whispered, with a smile that was much more relaxed than she knew he felt.

Darcy laughed. “It is,” she agreed of the Christina Perri ballad that had been chosen at random. “But that’s what we get for not picking one ourselves.”

“Master P would’ve been better,” he declared and dropped his chin so he could speak right into her ear. “I’m fucking starving.”

Darcy snorted unattractively and let her hand curl up around his neck. People were taking photos with their phones. She was pretty sure they were pulling off the appearance of infatuated newlyweds just fine, as long as they kept whispering. “I’m going to eat all of the cake and pop the seams of this dress when this is all over.”

“Imma put a hurt on those crab cakes,” he said seriously. “I’ll tell you that much.”

“God, I wish they’d let us do chicken and waffles,” she sighed with disappointment.

Eddie laughed. “Maybe next time,” he promised, and let his chin rest against her temple. They swayed for a few more moments before his hand tightened around hers and the arm around her waist pulled her a little closer. “They’re here,” he said. “Just walked in.”

“Shit,” she breathed. “Just keep dancing. Give them a few minutes to sit down and get a drink.”

To her relief they were not the only ones who had spotted the last two pieces of their puzzle. She caught a series of pointed looks and signals around the room as they returned to the head table and she downed her glass of champagne in one gulp. “Hey,” Eddie caught her hand as she started to leave. He offered her a smile and kissed the tops of her hands before he looked up at her and said, just loud enough for her to hear, “Let’s go home, partner.”

Darcy took one more deep breath and nodded. She crossed the room on shaky knees and approached the DJ’s corner. He caught her eye and grabbed his microphone. “Alright everybody,” he said in smooth voice that was nothing like what she recognized from when she’d worked with him in Vice. “Our beautiful bride, the brand-new Mrs. Lynnie Williams has a little game she wants to play to liven things up a little bit.” He paused and grinned at the crowd. “We can do that for her, can’t we?”

To her relief, there was a chorus of cheers indicating that, as Rodriguez had suggested, the open bar had done half the work for them. Quietly, she heard Blondie begin to play as she stepped up to the microphone. “Hey everyone,” she greeted with as big and cheesy of a grin as she could manage. “Like he said, we’re gonna play a game to get this party started, okay?” Another round of applause while she noticed someone pull the doors to the reception hall closed quietly. Blondie got a little bit louder. “Now I want everybody to stay seated, but do me a favor and put your hands up, like this?” she held her palms up, fingers spread wide, just above her head. To her amazement, the entire room did as she asked. No questions, nothing more than a few confused chuckles shared between them. She wiggled her fingers to count down.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

“Now, I want everyone in the room who’s a cop to stand up,” she said, not changing her cheerful tone. In the time it took for the confusion at her request to set in, more than half the room was standing. Darcy could not help but clap her hands together excitedly. “The rest of you are under arrest!” she declared before all hell broke loose.

 

**07:46PM**

 

Almost dazed with relief, Darcy barely noticed Rodriguez drop into the chair beside her or DeSimone follow after.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” he declared, loosening the tie around his neck.

Darcy squinted at the debris in the empty room. The decorations that had been trashed. The tables kicked over in the struggle. “We didn’t really do this, did we?” she asked in disbelief.

“No,” Eddie assured her, in equal shock, from her other side. “We totally did it. It totally worked.”

She shook her head and looked from one side of the reception hall to the other. “ _How_?”

“I have no fucking idea,” Driscoll chimed in as he sank into one of the last two remaining chairs. “But it did.” He raised a half-empty champagne flute. “Kudos.”

After everything they’d been through, Darcy couldn’t help but feel like _kudos_ was phoning it in a little bit in the praise department. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the doors open and her fellow officers start to filter back in. Some looking a little worse for the wear, but everyone still very much alive and relatively unharmed as they came to cluster around the only occupied table.

“So, uh, what now?” Reed asked, glancing from around the room.

Darcy frowned. “What do you mean, what now?” she asked as some of the shock finally began to wear off. “We’re partying,” she declared. “We earned it.”

All eyes and attention shifted immediately to Driscoll who looked like he was fighting a very real, very large smile. He let out a sigh and moved his shoulders. “Who am I to argue with the bride on her wedding day?”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “So…we’re partying?”

Driscoll nodded. “We’re partying. _Responsibly,_ ” he added over the cheer that rose from the crowd. “A hangover is not a valid excuse for missing work.”

But by the time he’d issued that warning, no one was listening anymore.

 

**08:06PM**

 

She didn’t know who cut the cake, but the bottom layer had been thoroughly dismantled in short order by the time Darcy made her way to the table. Ignoring the slices that had been plated—she had to guess by the hardworking, undeserving catering staff with the bad luck to have been scheduled for this event—Darcy studied the top two layers that held most of the decoration. To her relief, there had been no bride and groom statues atop the cake, just an innocuous silver heart that she guessed had once topped another officer’s wedding cake. She squinted at the details in the buttercream. Mostly swirls of dark blue and little gold leaves throughout except for a few—

“Bees,” Wasylyshyn’s voice startled her, pulling her attention back to find him standing behind her. “Nowicki’s idea,” he smirked. “Had ‘em put little bumblebees on the cake. For the sting.”

Darcy snorted and shook her head. “I bet Driscoll couldn’t wait to sign off on that idea.”

“Yeah those two are pretty cute.”

“I thought you had a swamp to be slithering back into,” she said with a grin.

He shrugged and tossed a look of amusement over his shoulder at the room. “I thought you’d be out there celebrating too.”

Darcy mirrored his shrug. “I will be,” she assured him. “Just giving my feet a minute to readjust to having the circulation back in my toes.” She lifted the gauzy hem of her white dress and wiggled her bare toes at him.

“Ah,” he nodded. “Can’t say I know the feeling.”

She looked back up and raised her eyebrows. “Did Baptiste lawyer up?’

“Immediately,” he said with another nod. “Knew he would,” he moved his shoulder again. “Doesn’t matter. We got him dead to rights on a dozen different charges. He’s gonna be eighty years old before he sees the outside of a jail cell.”

“And…Hayes?” she asked, willing herself not to get her hopes up.

“Can’t deny he did us a solid,” Wasylyshyn said with regret. “Handing us Baptiste like that.”

Her shoulders dropped. “Please tell me this wasn’t a get-out-of-jail free card.”

“Course not,” he scoffed. “But I know your DA was talking about concurrent sentences—and dropping it all to second-degree.” He turned and grabbed a plate. “He’ll do at least twenty-five.”

Darcy nodded slowly. “Well,” she sighed. “That’s not nothin’.”

“You can get all the gritty details at the prelims, Lewis,” Wasylyshyn said. “But you should enjoy yourself tonight.” He offered her a rare smile beneath his salt-and-pepper beard. “You did good.”

She held out a hand for him to shake. “I’d say it was a pleasure working with you, Special Agent,” she said with a smile.

He grasped her hand tightly. “But you’ve lied enough for a while.”

Her grin doubled as they shook. “Get back to the swamp safely.”

She watched him wander off, about to procure her own portion of the open bar and maybe some real food before she jumped right into the sugar.

“Lewis,” Driscoll’s bark jolted her from her decision-making and spun her back around. “Do me a favor.”

She frowned. “I just did,” she reminded without irony. “Big drug bust? Gave up my life for six months? Perhaps you remember?”

Her lieutenant was unfazed. He picked up a plated slice of cake and held it out to her. “Do me a favor,” he repeated. “Take this out to the trailer out back for the surveillance guy.”

Darcy blinked. “Seriously?”

“It’ll take five minutes.”

She looked at him for another long moment before she scoffed and snatched the plate out of his hand. “Don’t forget a fork!” he called after her. Darcy rolled her eyes and  grabbed a napkin roll and told herself that no matter what she’d just accomplished, it wasn’t a good idea to flip off her boss.

The grass was already wet and cold beneath her bare feet and she immediately regretted not grabbing her shoes in her haste to get away from Driscoll. “Can’t argue with the bride on her wedding day,” she grumbled and groused across the lawn. “Can’t argue with her—just order her around like she’s a fucking secretary.”

The trailer in question was not police property—just a left over from the recent construction on the estate that they’d commandeered for command center. She gathered her dress in one hand and stalked up the steps, banging once on the aluminum door before she huffed again and turned the knob.

She dropped the handful of dress she’d been holding and lost her grip on the plate at the sight of Steve standing in the middle of the trailer, shrugging into his jacket. He stopped at the sound of the plate and silverware clattering to the ground, stuck with one arm in a sleeve and the other out when he saw her.

Darcy felt the breath leave her. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them in disbelief. “Steve?” she asked, unsure of what else to say.

Steve’s mouth opened and closed once before he dropped his jacket. “Driscoll asked me to come as back-up,” he said, sounding almost apologetic. “I wasn’t—”

He didn’t have time to finish his sentence, cut off when Darcy crossed the small space and threw her arms around him, pulling him down to kiss her. It was only a second of surprise before she felt him circle his arms around her waist and crush her closer. This was real, she told herself, almost not trusting it to be true. Steve was here and she was back where she belonged, and everything was right again.

Her head felt light, practically buoyant with relief when she pulled away for a breath. She held his face in shaky hands and shook her head, keeping him close enough that her nose brushed with his. “I don’t care why you’re here,” she said with a breathless laugh. “I missed you so much.”

She didn’t want to stop touching him. Soaking in his warmth. Breathing him in, holding her tight inside her lungs. Never letting go.

“Me too,” he said against her lips and kissed her again. “I missed you too,” he breathed and rained soft, featherlight kisses over her cheeks, her closed eyes, the tip of her nose.

A rush of emotion rose in her chest and stung at her nose and eyes, blurring her vision. “I’m done,” she said, needlessly. “I can come home.”

He nodded and pushed at the tears she couldn’t stop with his thumbs. “I know,” he laughed softly and motioned to the monitors behind them with his chin. “I was watching.” His lips met hers for another quick, sweet kiss. “You were amazing.”

Darcy sniffed and tried unsuccessfully to stem her tears. All the stress, all the waiting and the mistrust and the time spent away from everything she loved was hitting her at once. She forced out an exhale and swiped at her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she admitted. To her relief, Steve noticed her breathlessness and tugged her back with him to the chair he’d just vacated. He sat down and pulled her down to sit on his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head against his shoulder.

He ran his fingers gently over her arms, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Steve kissed her forehead. “Do you want to stay?” he asked after a few long moments of tranquil silence had passed between them.

“Stay?” she repeated, sitting up straight again to look at him.

“With your team,” he nodded again to the monitors where the after party was already taking off. “Celebrate your—”

Darcy silenced him a second time in only a few minutes with her lips on his. “They’re fine without me,” she assured him when they broke apart. She dropped her head to rest her forehead on his. “Take me home.”

Steve tapped his nose to hers and smiled. “You got it.”

They were halfway across the lawn, headed toward the road where Steve had hidden his motorcycle hours earlier, when Darcy stopped suddenly, struck with an idea. She pulled on his hand to turn him back to her. “Hang on.”

He frowned. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, grateful to be telling the truth for the first time in months. “I was just…thinking.”

“Thinking…?” he repeated slowly. “Thinking what?”

Darcy took a deep breath and opened her mouth once. Twice. Three times before she found the words she wanted to say. “That…um…” she pursed her lips. “Well, I mean, we’re here, right? And this place is beautiful and,” she glanced down at her the damp hem of her dress. “I’m already in this dress…”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “Wait—”

“And Ortiz is an undercover narcotics officer, but he’s still an internet-ordained minister or whatever who can legally—”

“Darcy,” Steve cut her off abruptly. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

Her mouth fell open and she let out a croak of uncertainty because yes. That was exactly what she was trying to do. She was just doing a terrible job. “I mean, from a cost perspective, it’s very efficient—”

He laughed in disbelief. “A cost perspective?” he repeated. “That’s what this is coming down to?”

“No,” she insisted quickly. “I mean, I was just…” she blew out a flustered breath.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you want to marry me?”

“Yes,” she said instantly, because it had to be obvious by now. “Of course I do. There’s no one in the world that I would rather marry and having to do all of this,” she motioned to her dress and the venue again, “bullshit with Eddie made me realize that the only person I wouldn’t absolutely hate doing it for real with...is you.”

His frown returned. “I...think there was almost something romantic there. Somewhere.”

“The point is,” she steadied herself with another deep breath. “I love you. I’m crazy, stupid, never-going-to-recover in love with you and I can’t imagine my life without you.” She swallowed hard and continued. “But Steve, I _really_ never want to plan a wedding—real or fake—ever again.”

“It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?”

“It is the literal worst.”

She watched the idea take shape in his eyes; her heart hammered with hope somewhere high in her throat.

“And if we...” Steve shrugged. “I mean, it’s already done if we do it this way.”

“Right?” she agreed, trying not to get her hopes too high that he’d agree “We wouldn’t have to worry about it!”

“Yeah. And then we’d just be...”

“Married,” they said in unison.

Darcy caught the shy smile that was tugging at Steve’s lips. She reached out and tangled their fingers together again. “That’s the part I’d rather focus on,” she said quietly. “Because it sounds pretty great to me.”

“Me too,” he agreed before his throat bobbed with a hard swallow.

Darcy squeezed her fingers around his. “So, what do you say, Steve Rogers? Will you marry me?”

Steve’s smile split his face and he laughed with a little shake of his head. “Yes,” he said reaching up to take her face in his hands. “Yes, Darcy, I will marry you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the actual real-life sting:
> 
> -The note from Eddie's kids  
> -The pre-wedding busts  
> -Darcy's game at the reception  
> -The bumblebees on the cake  
> -The bride who came into the surveillance room and the guy in said surveillance room getting married (although they weren't already in love in the real story and didn't get married on the spot). 
> 
>  
> 
> Thoughts? I love you all.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, my friends. The last pages of part 3.
> 
> Thanks for everyone who has hung out with me and Detective Lewis since day one. I love this universe and have had the greatest experience writing it for all of you. 
> 
> This entire story is because of Amerna. Of all the things Darcyland has given me, friendships like hers are the sweetest.

Epilogue 

_“No matter what happens, if, at the end of your wedding day, you’re married to the person you love, then it was a roaring success”_

_-Wedding planning advice #130_

 

 

Sherwood Lane was quiet by 9:30 that night. Carl Heiber’s teenaged son had just returned his car to the driveway. Elsie Connolly had just let her cats back in, warning them both that this was the last time for the night.

No one on the street was prepared for the arrival of a massive quinjet hovering over the cul-de-sac, looking like a space ship from every B-Movie of the last century.

The Heibers, Elsie, Quinn and Rachel Morgan, and Dan Pascuzzi had all timidly assembled on their lawns, sharing looks of alarm as the ship touched down and a ramp extended from the port side.

Collectively, the residents of the street let out a sigh of relief at the of a man exiting the craft. A human man, by the looks of it. Although his long hair and the intimidating way he strode up the lawn was enough to make the crowd concerned for what he wanted with Will and Georgia Lewis.

Of all people.

Without discussion, Dan stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he called, raising a friendly hand in the man’s direction. “Hey,” he called again, a little louder, torn between relief and fear when his target stopped his trek in the middle of the Lewis’ front yard. “Hey pal,” Dan offered a nervous smile. “You uh,” he coughed. “Well, you can’t just park a, uh, well a spaceship in the middle of the street like that.”

The man turned, his brow furrowed. “What?”

“It’s garbage night,” Rachel chimed in meekly, from behind her wife. “There’s an ordinance. About parking in the street?”

Before the stranger could focus his intense stare on them any longer, there was a flash of movement from the cockpit and suddenly, the corners of the jet blinked red.

Hazard lights.

To their combined relief, the corner of his lips twitched into a half smile at the sight. “Only staying a minute,” he said and turned back to the Lewis home where Georgia had already opened the door.

“Bucky,” she called cheerfully, scurrying outside. “It’s so good to see you,” she said and offered this large, angry man a hug as soon as he was within arm’s reach.

The neighbors exchanged looks again as Will followed out of the house, turning to lock the door. They were dressed up. Will in a suit and tie, Georgia in a dark blue dress and jacket. She glanced down at herself and held out her arms. “Do you think this is alright?” They heard her ask. “You know she didn’t give us any time at all to prepare for this—”

“He knows, hon,” Will broke in. “They gave him the same amount of time.”

“You look great,” the interloper assured her before he beckoned to the spaceship. “Come on; Sam and Jane are waiting.”

Will turned and faced the neighborhood as his wife was led to the ramp of the craft. “Our daughter’s getting married,” he called with a wave and a smile before he turned and boarded the ramp himself.

As if that explained anything at all.

 

***

 

As soon as they’d decided to do this, it felt like someone had hit fast-forward on the night. Ortiz was easy enough to convince—more excited to be able to say he officiated Captain America’s wedding than that of his fellow officer. Her parents were a little more difficult—thrilled when she told them she and Steve were getting married, confused when she told them Sam and Bucky were on their way to get them so they wouldn’t miss it. _No, now, Mom. I’m getting married now. Like, today. In like, an hour._ She told Jozelyn, who laughed; and Eddie, who looked like he might cry, and asked them both to stand in as witnesses. By the time she was yanking off her fake wedding and engagement bands and unstrapping her holsters from her thigh and ankle, the entire reception hall had heard and were grabbing chairs to reassemble a ceremony outside.

Her parents were off the quinjet first—looking, she had to admit, like they rode in one all the time. Jane followed quickly, dressed in a pair of ratty jeans and a pink flannel shirt. She charged ahead of the Lewises, who had stopped to hug Steve, and pulled Darcy in for a quick hug. “You look amazing,” she said, pulling back to look at her. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess. Bucky didn’t really give me any time to change.”

Darcy waved a hand. “You’re fine,” she insisted. “I know this is last minute,” she said before she added, “but I didn’t want you miss it.”

Jane grinned and hugged her again. “I’m so happy for you,” she said quietly, and dropped a quick kiss to Darcy’s cheek before she let her go.

Sam wore a wide smile as he handed a garment bag to Steve and a pair of shoes. He and Bucky were dressed casually too, she noted with a swell of sentiment at the way everyone appeared to have literally dropped what they were doing to come be a part of this.

She was being hugged by her mother before she realized it. “Hey Mom,” she said with a laugh. “Thanks for coming.”

Georgia pulled back the way Jane had and admired her daughter, her eyes were already welling. “My beautiful girl,” she said softly and shook her head. “Always doing everything so fast.”

Darcy smiled. “We’ve been together for four years, Mom.”

“Oh, I know that,” she insisted, dabbing at her eyes. “But my God, Darcy, you couldn’t have given us a few days’ notice?”

“You’re the one who always told me when you know, you know,” she reminded as her father stepped up behind his wife to join them. “Plus, when else am I going to get the opportunity to put an entire wedding on the NYPD credit card?”

“That’s my girl,” Will laughed. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You look beautiful, Bumblebee,” he said sincerely before he frowned thoughtfully. “Do I still get to give you away? Christ,” he shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve been to a wedding in twenty-years. Do people still do that?”

She grinned. “Yes, Dad. People still do that.”

Eddie appeared in the doorway of the reception hall and raised a hand. “You guys ready to do this?”

Darcy glanced around and saw that Steve had already changed—her stomach gave an unexpected little flip at the sight of him in a suit and tie. She caught his eye and shrugged. “Yeah?” she called back to Eddie, when Steve had shrugged back. “I think so?”

The second quinjet touched down on the lawn, unlike the first which had landed in the parking lot with the other vehicles, right as the rest of the guests were settling into their chairs.

Will shot his daughter a look of alarm. “Someone else coming?”

She shook her head as the engines died and the doors opened and felt her eyes widen as the remaining Avengers quite literally assembled on the lawn, guns and blasters drawn, pointed at her family and co-workers.

Steve, Sam and Bucky were jogging across the grass and reached them just as Tony and Rhoadey’s masks were lifting and the confusion among them turned palpable. “What’s…going on here?” Wanda asked as the red sparks she’d been summoning faded back into her hands. Natasha holstered both guns. Vision sank to the ground.

“That’s an excellent question,” Steve replied testily. “Why don’t you guys go first?”

“I told you he was fine,” Thor said, shaking his head. “He’s perfectly fine—they’re all perfectly fine.”

“Who was fine?” Darcy asked, hands on her hips. “What the hell are you all doing here?”

Jane joined them, breathless from inside. “What’s going on?” she asked, her eyes falling on Thor. “What are you doing here?”

“We thought—” Rhoadey stopped and seemed to bite down on his words. Suddenly reluctant to let them out.

“Barnes was at the tower and he just came into the gym and grabbed Wilson and we thought—” Tony also stalled, looking as sheepish as Darcy guessed he ever did.

“You what?” Sam demanded; arms crossed over his chest. “You thought Barnes went Manchurian Candidate again—what?” he scoffed. “ _Kidnapped_ me?”

“Not kidnapped,” Rhoadey said quickly.

“I didn’t think that,” Natasha stated with a grievous, apologetic look in Darcy’s direction.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Tony cried. “You’re the one who told us what had happened.”

“Why would I want to kidnap Wilson?” Bucky asked, his face twisted in confusion. “What the fuck would I even do with him?”

“Why would he kidnap both of us?” Jane looked equally confused. “Kind of a weird combination.”

“We didn’t realize he’d taken you, too,” Vision piped up, apologetically.

“I didn’t _take_ anyone!” Bucky exclaimed.

Sam’s frown deepened. “What do you mean why would you want to kidnap me?” he asked. “Why _wouldn’t_ you want to kidnap me?”

“So I _could_ have been kidnapped and no one even noticed?” Jane asked.

“You were working,” Thor reminded her quickly. “No one had seen you all day.”

“Wait—are you two getting _married_?” Tony’s question rose above the din, finally clocking Darcy’s wedding dress and the venue they’d crashed. “Is that what this is?”

“Yes, Tony,” Steve said, exasperated. “That’s what this is.”

“And you didn’t invite us?”

Darcy felt a hand on her arm as a cluster of petty arguments broke out between Earth’s mightiest heroes. She turned to find her mother beside her, biting her lip. “It’s okay,” she assured her. “They’re not going to hurt anyone.”

“Oh, no,” Georgia shook her head. “I know. I just…well,” she lowered her voice. “I just want to make sure you understand that when you marry a man,” she glanced over Darcy’s shoulder at the squabbling. “You’re marrying his whole family, too.”

She followed her mother’s gaze and met Steve’s eyes over the scuffle. He offered a lopsided smile and shrugged, somewhere between amusement and apology. She looked back at Georgia and put her arms around her in a long, tight hug. “I know, Mom,” she said quietly, her chin on her shoulder. “And I love you for saying that.”

Georgia laughed softly and brought a hand up to cradle the back of Darcy’s head for a moment before she dropped a kiss on her temple. “Oh sweetheart,” she said fondly. “Your life is going to be so weird.”

"Yeah," Darcy held on for just a little longer. “I know.”

They had only parted for a moment before Georgia’s expression changed to a look Darcy hadn’t seen in a very long time. She put two fingers in her mouth and blew a sharp, piercing whistle, effectively silencing the group. “Excuse me,” she said when she’d drawn all the attention she needed. “But I believe my daughter and future son-in-law were about to do something very important,” she reminded pointedly. “Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would like very much to see that.” Darcy watched in amusement as Tony dropped his eyes, Rhoadey immediately softened his combative stance, and Bucky and Sam both exchanged a quick look of contrition. “So, if you’d all stop arguing like children, I’m sure there are plenty of chairs and enough space for everyone.”

Quickly, and without making eye contact with Darcy’s mother, they muttered apologies and disbanded, heading for empty chairs that had been set out by the other guests. Bucky clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “C’mon, punk,” he said with a smile—a real smile, Darcy noted—the kind she’d only been treated to a few times before. The kind that, she hoped, would start becoming more frequent. “Let’s go get you married.”

Darcy hung back, watching as Natasha needlessly straightened Steve’s tie and brushed Bucky’s hair out of his face before they took their places at the front of the congregation. Sam offered Georgia his arm to escort her down the makeshift aisle. She caught Natasha’s eye as she was about to grab herself a seat. “You’re the one who told them what happened when Bucky left the tower?” she asked, her head tipped to one side.

Nat’s lips curled in a satisfied smirk. “Like I was going to miss this,” she said with a scoff. “Sorry the quickest way to get here meant bringing the whole battalion.”

Darcy grinned. “Don’t be,” she assured her. “I know he’s happy they’re all here.”

Natasha glanced up at the front of the crowd where Eddie and Jozelyn had just arrived, electing not to walk down the aisle a second time that day. “Knock ‘em dead,” she said and gave Darcy’s arm a squeeze before she darted up the outside of the right side of the assembled chairs and tucked in to one near the front.

Her father walked her down the aisle and kissed her cheek before he pulled Steve into a quick hug and kissed his as well. He joined their hands with glassy eyes and took a seat beside his wife.

Ortiz was a little less steady than he’d been earlier. And to her relief, he’d lost the collar he’d worn before. Darcy knew he spoke to the small crowd, told a joke or two about this being the weirdest workday any of them had ever had. She was pretty sure he made everyone laugh before he said a few things about marriage in general and reminded everyone why they were there. But she wasn’t listening. She was unable to focus on anything but the flecks of green and gold in Steve’s eyes and the way he was looking at her like they were the only two people in the world.

Ortiz glanced between the two of them. “Do you have your own thing prepared?”

Darcy blinked. “What?”

“For the vows,” he clarified. “It’s cool if you want the traditional ones but I just gotta run and get my book. It’ll only take a minute.”

“It’s fine,” Steve said and squeezed her hands. “We can wing it.”

“You sure?” their officiant asked.

Darcy felt her stomach do another somersault of excitement as she nodded. “We’re good,” she assured him and looked back at Steve. “You go first.”

“Me?” he repeated, looking surprised.

“You’re the one who said we could wing it,” she reminded with a laugh. “Were you just stalling?”

“Guys, seriously,” Ortiz pointed a thumb in the direction of the reception. “It’s like, right on the table.”

“No, no,” Steve shook his head. “She’s right.” He cleared his throat and turned his attention back to her. She smiled up at him as his expression softened and his nerves settled. “Darcy,” his thumbs moved gently over the tops of her fingers. “This is not how I expected this day to end. Or, honestly, any time I ever thought about what our wedding might look like, it wasn’t this.” Darcy laughed again softly, urging him to continue. “But if the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that things are always weirder and funnier and so much better when I let you change my plans. And when I think about all I had to do to get to stand here with you,” he reached up and held her face with one hand. “I just want you to know that I’d do everything the same a thousand times if it meant we’d end up here together.”

Darcy blinked as her vision swam. “Really?” she asked quietly. “Everything?”

He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. “Every last thing,” he said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he added with a soft smile. “And I want to spend the rest of our lives making sure you never forget that.”

She couldn’t help herself as she stretched up on her toes to kiss him. “Goddammit,” she said, swiping at the corners of her eyes when she sank back down. “That was really good,” she let out a wet laugh. “I should’ve gone first.” Steve gently brushed away one of her stray tears. She forced herself to take a settling breath and took his hands in hers again.

“Steve,” she swallowed the last of her nerves. “ _The Sound of Music_ was on the other day,” she began. “I was watching it trying to talk myself out of a panic attack about this whole thing, and I got to the part where the Captain and Maria are telling each other when they started loving each other and she says—”

“It was when he called her Captain,” Steve finished softly when Darcy’s voice hitched to her dismay.

“Yeah,” she nodded and swallowed hard again. “It’s my favorite part,” she admitted softly, even though he already knew that. “Because it always makes me think of you. And I wish I had some cute, lightning bolt moment I could pinpoint when I fell in love with you with trumpets and fireworks but…” she shrugged. “I can’t think of just one moment…I can think of a million little, seemingly insignificant moments that all made me realize that you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. The only thing in my life I can’t lose—the only person I never want to be without.” Darcy sniffled again and forced her voice to be steady long enough to finish her vows. “And I know we don’t do anything according plan,” she added quickly. “I know that this probably won’t always be easy but I’m promising you right now that there is no one in the world I’d rather spend my life with. And I promise to choose to stay in love with you every day. Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s not fun.” She squeezed his hands. “You’re it for me. And I promise to spend the rest of our lives making sure _you_ never forget _that_.”

She caught the sparkle of a tear in Steve’s eyes before he took her face in his hands again and met her lips with his in a soft, gentle kiss. “I love you,” he whispered when they parted.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back, her heart still fluttering high in her throat.

Ortiz waited until they broke apart before he cleared his throat. “At this time, the bride and groom will exchange—” He stopped himself at the sight of Darcy shaking her head. “You…don’t have rings?”

“Not exactly,” she frowned.

Behind Steve, Bucky cleared his throat and reached into his pocket. “You have one ring.”

Darcy felt her eyes widen as Steve turned and accepted a small velvet ring box from his best friend. “Where did you get that?”

He looked almost bashful as he smiled. “I’ve had it for a minute.”

“A minute?” she repeated.

“I was waiting for the right moment,” Steve admitted.

Darcy laughed. “Is this the right moment?”

“Sure seems that way,” he said as he popped the box open to reveal a silver ring set with delicate diamonds around a sapphire and Darcy felt her breath momentarily leave her lungs. Tentatively, Steve took her left hand in his, the ring poised to slide onto her finger. “If you don’t like it, we can—”

“Shut up and give it to me,” she demanded before she blushed and covered her mouth. “Sorry. I mean, say whatever you want or whatever you’re supposed to,” she clarified, “as long as it doesn’t involve me not wearing this ring. Because I love it. And I’m never taking it off.”

He looked like he let out a breath he’d been holding. “Alright then,” he chuckled and glanced back to Ortiz. “Should we do this part ourselves too?”

“Oh, no, man,” he shook his head. “I mean, you can if you want to, but I know this part if you just want to follow me.” Steve nodded and Ortiz began, with Steve repeating as he slid the ring onto Darcy’s finger.

“Darcy, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and fidelity. I ask that you wear it as a reminder that you are the love of my life and my very best friend. I promise to love, honor, and protect you with all that I have and all that I am for as long as we both shall live.”

Ortiz frowned for a second as he glanced at Darcy before he recovered. “I got you, Lewis. Just repeat after me.” She looked up at Steve, skeptical, before Ortiz spoke again, waiting for her to repeat.

“Steve, I’m _going_ to give you a ring as a symbol of my love and fidelity as soon as this ceremony is over. Or probably tomorrow because it’s late and all the jewelry stores are closed.” She paused and shot Ortiz an incredulous look. He shrugged and urged her to keep going. “But once you get it, it will be a symbol of my love and fidelity. I ask that you wear it as a reminder that you are the love of my life and my very best friend. I promise to love, honor, and protect you with all that I have and all that I am for as long as we both shall live.” With nothing else to offer him, Darcy bent and pressed her lips to the ring finger of his left hand.

Ortiz waited for her to straighten up before he raised his voice to address their small group. “Darcy and Steve have exchanged their vows and y’know,” he shrugged, “did the rings as best they could,” he paused for the laugh he received and then continued. “So, it’s with pleasure that I declare them husband and wife.” He grinned at the smiles that had come over their faces at his words before he gave Steve a nod, “You can kiss your bride.”

And as Darcy leaned into him for one long, perfect kiss full of a million promises, and amid the cheers and applause from their family and friends, she couldn’t help but think that she’d ended up with a perfect wedding after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you.  
> I kiss you.  
> I am addicted to your feedback and I must know what you think. 
> 
> And most of all, I hope you liked it.


End file.
